


10.89

by a_denim_wrapped_nightmare



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Aliens, Angst, Existentialism, First Contact, Gen, Mentions of Death, SETI - Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Science Fiction, additional tags to be added later, and some hopefulness too, rated t for language and some heavy themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-07-05 17:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15868647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_denim_wrapped_nightmare/pseuds/a_denim_wrapped_nightmare
Summary: There's a message coming in from outer space. It's clear now that humanity isn't alone in the universe. People the world over find a multitude of ways to react to the discovery.Ryan and Shane are no exception.





	1. Primes

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Thanks for clicking. 
> 
> This fic has been quite the project. A lot of time and research (way more of the latter than there probably should have been) went into this. I'm nervous but hopeful. 
> 
> This story was inspired in part by the film Contact (with Jodie Foster) and by the youtube channel of John Michael Godier. Check them both out if you haven't already. 
> 
> Now, I should say that this fic will get a little bit heavy at points. It's not exactly what they call "comfort no hurt". But it doesn't tick any of the archive warnings, hence the rating. 
> 
> That being said, here's the actual fic. Hope you enjoy!

_September 9, 10:53 A.M._

 

They were flipping through the channels, not caring much for what they saw on the airwaves, when Ryan’s thumb froze above the button.

_SETI DETECTS NOTEWORTHY INTERSTELLAR SIGNAL_

 The chyron caught both their eyes.

“SETI?” asked Shane. “Aren’t those the people who look for aliens? They, like, listen for radio signals, looking for something weird, right?”

Ryan nodded.  _SETI_ , now that's a name he’d run into a lot over the past few years. But this was the first time he’d seen it on TV, documentaries aside. Their job was to scan the skies for messages from intelligent aliens. To prove whether humanity was truly alone or not. An awfully big job, and one that Ryan could sympathize with.

“Okay,” said Shane, “I'm interested in the news for once.”

“Eh, I'm actually gonna keep my expectations low,” said Ryan, veteran of alien-related research that he was. He’d seen this song and dance play out before, and the steps, while interesting, never definitively screamed ‘aliens’. There’s always another option, another new yet comparatively mundane thing it could be. Even the most compelling pieces of evidence SETI found were never truly conclusive, at least not for the ever-skeptical SETI itself. “Don't want to be disappointed when they say it's a star sneezing or something.”

“Huh?”

“Shh, let’s actually listen.”

They fell silent, and let the people on the screen do all the talking. Two women were seated at a desk. One of them, they recognized as an anchor, but her name eluded them. The other, red-haired and dressed in green, was smiling a kind of smile that couldn't be faked.

_“...flying out so quickly. It really is appreciated, it’s a pleasure to have you here.”_

_“Pleasure to be here.”_

_“Now, Dr. Branner, you and other researchers have been listening for alien radio signals for years, decades, now. As I understand, this isn't the first signal you’ve found. Can you tell me what makes this one so special?”_

The woman in green, who looked like she was a half-second away from spontaneously combusting with pent-up joy, answered.

_“Well, I'm glad you asked. It's true that we, or radio astronomers as a whole, I should say, have found interesting signals in the past. The most famous one was probably the ‘Wow! Signal’, which some of your viewers may be familiar with.”_

Shane nudged Ryan on the shoulder.

“That sounds like your area of expertise.”

“Shut up, Shane.”

“ _But no one could never conclusively say if that signal, the ‘Wow! Signal’, was of extraterrestrial origin or not. It could have been emissions from some new kind of star, one theory even suggested it might be a comet. Either way, it was - in my skeptical opinion, at least - most likely something natural. There was no content in it, no pattern that would indicate that it was sent by some intelligent life form. And before this weekend, that was the best thing we’d heard.”_

The anchor nodded, not interrupting. Ryan and Shane kept quiet, too, Ryan paying attention and Shane starting to fiddle with his flannel collar.

_“I bring it up as a point of comparison. Now, what makes this signal, this most recent discovery, so unique, and so compelling, is that it, unlike anything we’ve seen before, appears to contain a distinct pattern.”_

In the moment after, you could have heard a pin drop.

Both boys froze in place. Did- did they hear that right? A pattern? In a signal from space? Not just a random spike in the charts, but a  _pattern_?

“ _That's_ new,” muttered Ryan. The song and dance had an unexpected flourish this time.

“ _What happened was, uh, yesterday, we were surveying a patch of sky in the constellation Virgo. Late that evening, we detected a spike in one particular radio frequency. A strong spike at that. Then it died down. Which, on its own, is interesting, but could easily have a natural source. But after a short time period, there was another spike, which was almost immediately followed by yet another spike. Now, there was a significantly shorter break between these two newest spikes compared to the first and second ones. Like one, pause, one, one, pause. That's when we really began to, to use the scientific terminology, freak out. Then after another break, three spikes. Then, five. Seven. And that, that's when we realized that we had a pattern, a very significant…”_

Patterns from space. That’s not fucking normal. That’s not what a pulsar would do. Nothing natural would follow the kind of pattern that woman described.

“Holy  _shit,_ ” said Ryan, nearly breathless.

“That… that sounds weird,” said Shane, in much the same manner.

“No shit, that sounds weird, Shane! I-I've never read about a signal that did anything like that!”

_“Excuse me for a moment. If I'm not mistaken, those numbers - one, two, three, five - are those prime numbers?”_

_Oh fuck,_  realized Ryan.  _They are._ This wasn’t natural, no way in  _hell_  was this natural.

_“Y-yes. Except for one, we kept getting primes. It went on for a while, and after sixty-seven, it, uh, it stopped. By that point, we'd alerted every radio observatory in the Southern Hemisphere.”_

_“And you did that to confirm your findings?”_

_“Yes. We were worried that, perhaps, there could be a problem with our instruments. Uh- my physics teacher back in high school, she had this saying: ‘If you're absolutely certain about something, test it ten more times’. In science, doubt is a big part of the job. But after other telescopes got back to us, we knew…”_

She covered her mouth. It was like she was holding back tears.

_“They-they tuned in a little late, but they heard it, too. Same intensity, same frequency, same place in space. Look, I-I have to stress, we don't know for sure what it is. Again, doubt. Doubt everything you see. But if I may be optimistic for just a moment… I think the odds of this being a natural phenomenon are very slim at this point.”_

“Dude,” whispered Ryan, “holy fuck.”

Shane just glanced at him,not saying a word. If they weren’t both watching the same TV, Ryan might have assumed that Shane had finally seen a ghost.

_“So the odds of this being an alien broadcast are?”_

_“Well, nothing's conclusive yet, but it, uh, does appear to be the strongest candidate for an interstellar message that we've seen yet. We’ve got to evaluate all our data first, try not to let ourselves get too excited, which- well, I’m clearly not doing a great job with that so far, sorry.”_

_“Don’t be, this is all very exciting news. Now…”_

There's a dinging noise. Ryan pulls out his phone. As he turns it on, another ding goes off. Messages from co-workers.

**Jen**

_CHECK THD NEWS_

_HOLY SHIT_

**Quinta**

_Hey Ryan you won't believe what's on the news rn_

**Jen**

_DO ITVNOW_

He put the phone down. Not enough time to answer. The women on screen were still talking.

_“...and that's ‘why?’. Why would aliens want to talk to us?”_

_“Oh. Gosh, that's, um, that's not an easy question. We don't know. Supposing that this is an intentional message, it doesn't tell us much about the sender. Except that they have an understanding of mathematics. My best guess is that it's just their way of saying ‘hello, we’re here’.”_

_“Uh-huh. And I feel like we need to address, for folks who might be anxious about this-”_

_“Will they invade?”_

_“Ha, yeah, that's-”_

_“We don't need-”_

_“No? No alien attack force coming our way?”_

The women broke out in chuckles.

_“No, let’s not sound any alarms. Look, I'm not an expert on alien culture-”_

_“You’re kind of the closest we’ve got, though!”_

_“Ha- that's, that's true. I just- if I were going to invade a planet, I probably wouldn't shout ‘hey, look at us!’ before charging in.”_

_“HA!”_

_“Y’know? Just doesn't seem like a solid plan…”_

“Hey, Ryan?”

Shane’s voice, however quiet, still snapped Ryan’s attention from the screen.

“Hm?”

“I’m- I-” Shane tripped on his words. “Jesus, I can't believe this. It feels like I’m dreaming.”

“Oh, because it turns out Boogara was right all along?”

“No, I- shut up,” he wheezed. “I thought, like, statistically speaking, there had to be something else out there. Not even just microbes, there could be animals or something like that. The universe is big enough. I just didn’t imagine that we might  _actually_  find them.”

Shane let himself fall back, a smile bursting forth as he hit the couch.

“Ryan, I don’t say this a lot, but what she’s saying, it- it sounds  _real_. If it’s what they say it is, if something in space just beamed a bunch of prime numbers to us, I- ” For a moment he seemed at a loss for words. “I can’t think of another explanation. Maybe an actual scientist could. I couldn’t.”

Ryan took a moment to process Shane’s words. Which was difficult, since his brain was already overloaded with everything on the news. He had to think about this, but, well,  _what_ was he supposed to think about this? He’d always believed that humans weren’t alone in the universe. How could he not? He’d been researching that sort of thing for years, and if you asked him, there was enough compelling evidence to say that something else was out there.

But at that moment, he was in the same boat as Shane. For all his talk, he never really expected to see himself proven right. Nothing out there was enough to convince the skeptics of the world. But here was Shane, the man who wouldn’t believe in ghosts unless one tossed his sasquatch-sized self clear across the room, saying “this sounds real”. Saying that, and being happy about it. Happy in a way Ryan hadn’t seen him before.

Shane was struck with a wonderful shock, Ryan with sweet validation. The skeptic and the believer, finally on the same page. It was almost wholesome enough for Ryan to not say something snarky.

“Nah, I have a feeling you’d explain it with something dumb. Like, stars that happen to know math or something.”

Almost.

“Oh, fuck you!” Shane laughed back.

“To be honest, I’m a little surprised you’re so willing to accept this.”

“Well, this seems legit! It’s on national television, that lady clearly knows what she’s talking about.”

“She  _is_  stressing skepticism here.”

“That’s what scientists do, Ryan.”

“Fair.” After a beat, Ryan says, “Should we be paying attention to what they’re saying now?”

“Probably.”

The banter was put on hold, as they turned their eyes and ears to the women on the screen having a conversation of their own.

_“...it’s funny that you mention that. Because while the signal was still being transmitted, we calculated its origin point.”_

Both boys and the news anchor leaned in.

_“We determined that it was coming from Virgo, and a very particular star in that constellation. The star is called Ross 128. It’s what we call a red dwarf, so it’s smaller and not very bright compared to other stars. It was actually an object of interest for SETI before this recent signal.”_

_“Really?”_

_“Yes. Ross 128 has at least one planet in orbit around it. That planet, it’s called Ross 128 b. Because we astronomers are a creative bunch. It’s slightly bigger than Earth, and it’s much closer to its star than we are to our sun. But since its star is a red dwarf, it being closer doesn’t doom it to be a fiery wasteland. In fact, we believe that it’s within what we call the ‘Goldilocks Zone’ of its star. That means it’s not too hot or too cold, but at just the right temperature for liquid water to exist on its surface.”_

_“And it having water, how is that significant when it comes to alien life?”_

_“Well, that’s- it’s a bit complicated. Put simply, we know that life_ can _develop with liquid water, because that’s what we’ve observed on Earth. And we don’t know of any organisms that_ don’t _need water to survive. So when we look for worlds that might contain extraterrestrial life, water is one of the first things we try to find. So this star, this planet, they were already on our radar, so to speak. Especially considering the distance.”_

_“Distance?”_

_“Oh,” she gleefully said, “that’s one of the more exciting parts of all this. Ross 128 is relatively close to our solar system. In fact, it’s the twelfth closest star to us. 10.89 light-years away.”_

“Oh fuck,” Shane sputtered.

“Shane?”

“That’s close. That’s fucking close.”

“Ten light-years isn’t that big, is it?”

“Not really! She said twelfth closest star to us, right?’

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Ryan, that’s-” Shane took a moment to catch his breath. “That’s practically our backyard, cosmically speaking. I have watched enough  _Cosmos_  to know that’s close.”

Ryan kept those words on loop in his head. 10.89. Twelfth closest. 10.89. Twelfth closest. His heart threatened to beat its way out of his chest, but unlike most times it did that, he wasn’t scared. Just taken aback. Because… well, fuck. Aliens. Maybe-probably-hopefully aliens.

Just ten minutes ago he and Shane were intensely debating the merits of cinnamon toast versus cinnamon rolls. Ten minutes ago. And now? Fucking  _aliens_. It didn’t matter that cinnamon rolls were obviously the superior cinnamon product, not when what might be the biggest event in human history was going on.

Another ding.

**Kelsey**

_Yo they're talking about aliens on cnn_

**Mark**

_Dude check twitter, shit’s going wild_

**Jen**

_IM TEXTING SHANE ABOUT THIS TOO_

**Brent**

_I feel like I owe you an apology_

He flipped the ringer off. Man, today took a turn. One  _hell_  of a turn.

“This is so weird.”

“Yeah,” Shane responded, nodding.

“So cool.”

“Yeah!”

“I- god, this is amazing!” He couldn’t imagine it getting much better than thi-

_“Hold on,” said the anchor. She put her hand to her ear. “We’re getting-uh, just in. It’s being reported that another signal has been detected.”_

Ryan bolted upright. His body moved involuntarily, towards the screen.

 _No fucking way_ , he almost said aloud.

_“It sounds like this new signal is very similar to the one detected yesterday. It- hold on… we’re being told that this appears to be a repeat of yesterday’s signal.”_

“No fucking way,” he said aloud. “Oh my god. Oh fuck.” He grew breathless. “It never repeats. They never repeat. They never repeat. Shane-”

Shane was still sitting. Eyes on the screen.

“Shane?”

Not a peep.

_“Hold- we’re going to our foreign correspondent, Max Haden, reporting live from the observatory-”_

The screen cut away. Now a man in a suit stood in a busy room. Behind him, dozens of people scrambled about. They looked at computers, scribbled on papers, and one of them talked into a phone. Their voices blended together, but the man, close enough to the camera, was clear.

_“As you can see, it’s quite the scene over here. We are witnessing an unprecedented event unfold today.”_

Mixed in with all the background chatter and the reporter’s descriptions, there was something else. Something vaguely electronic. The best word Ryan had to describe it was “beep”. A  _beep_ , ringing through that room and his room. After a second, it faded. And after a second more, it came back.

“Oh my god.”

_“What you’re hearing, that repetitive high-pitched sound, that’s the signal. It’s coming in live, and it’s being played in a form that we can hear.”_

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

If Ryan were slightly more tired, he probably would have fainted right then. He whispered “holy shit,” and whispered it again, and perhaps whispered it a few more times, and looked back to Shane. He was rising from the couch, but slowly, the same way one moves when at night when trying to leave the peaceful air undisturbed.

_“This appears to be a near-identical repeat of the signal detected roughly twenty-four hours ago. A source here tells us that it is coming from the same origin point as yesterday’s discovery, and with the same frequency. The people here are confident that this is genuine, except the ones who’re convinced they’re dreaming. This is truly monumental…”_

Shane stood next to Ryan now, transfixed on the moving pixels. A hand covered the lower half of his face, leaving half his expression a mystery.

Suddenly the screen cut away, back to the first anchor.

_“Our apologies there. I have been informed that our crew was asked to temporarily cease broadcasting from that location. Coverage of this story will continue. Uh, Dr. Branner…”_

Branner was the definition of ‘deer in the headlights’.

_“Dr. Branner, are you alright?”_

_“Uh- oh, yes. I’m fine. Very fine.”_

_“Okay. Wh-what does this repeat mean, with regards to yesterday’s discovery?”_

_“I, uh- I, it definitely-”_  she fumbled for words.  _“We- after yesterday, a-all eyes are on Ross 128. Every telescope that can listen is listening. The odds of being fooled by a glitch or- or a hoax now- they’re basically zero. A-are multiple observatories reporting this?”_

 _“Oh- hold on.”_ The anchor put a hand to her ear, looked around at places off-screen.  _“It… the Parkes Telescope has confirmed, it is receiving the signal. The KAT-7 Telescope, also confirmed. Multiple others have confirmed, they are receiving the signal.”_

Ryan’s second hand went over his mouth. He didn’t remember the first one going up. Something intangible and indescribable was cracking all around them. Something tight and oppressive, that they had never realized was there, was on the verge of breaking.

 _“Okay. Not much room for doubt there.”_  Branner took a deep breath.  _“Alright, then.”_

Ryan and Shane’s shoulders brushed together.

_“I guess at this point, I might as well say it.”_

They’d forgotten how to breathe.

 

_“We’re not alone.”_

 

And the world stood still.

A pair of arms wrapped around Ryan. It wasn’t accompanied with words. They didn’t need words. Not when enough of them were already said.

A pair of arms wrapped around Shane. They might have stayed there for a few seconds, maybe a few dozen.

Both boys had found themselves in some strange state of existential euphoria. It was a feeling that didn’t have a name, not yet. There’d come a day in the near future when sociologists would conduct studies on it, that new emotion only experienced when one of the universe’s greatest questions is finally given a simple answer. The air had shattered, its invisible shards falling out of existence, leaving something new in its wake.

It was overwhelming, and it was wonderful. It made them feel incredibly small. And yet they felt that if they simply reached up, their fingertips could brush against the stars. Ryan could barely breathe, and though it was hard to say for sure, Shane might have been crying. It was awesome in the old sense of the word. And as the boys experienced firsthand, it kind of fucked with one’s perception of time.

  
Well. There wasn’t time to think about time. They had  _aliens_  to think about. And that could keep their minds busy for a very long while. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for making it this far!
> 
> I plan to have one chapter uploaded per day until the fic's conclusion. I hope you'll stick around to hear the end!


	2. You Are, We Are

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew- here's chapter two. 
> 
> Thank you for the response to the first chapter; hopefully this "chapter a day" thing works out. This story's plotted out, it just needs to be written. 
> 
> But enough of my rambling, let's get on with the fic!

_ September 10, 7:26 A.M. _

 

“Hello and welcome to Buzzfeed Unsolved Postmortem, a show where we answer your most pressing questions…”

Of all the weeks to go back to the old shooting schedule, they just had to pick this one. Hindsight was not their friend. But at the very least, they were emotionally stable enough to film the Postmortem that morning. Earth-shaking news be damned, they were getting this video out on time. 

Sure, their voices might have been a step or two higher than usual. Everyone was slightly shaken; even Mark was suitably fazed. Staying up late waiting for updates didn’t help, Ryan and his headache could attest to that much. Neither did waking up and realizing, with certainty, that this wasn’t just a dream. But for the sake of the show, they set up the set and steadied the cams. At least they were wide awake. Having your perception of the universe shattered was, as it turned out, a nice substitute for caffeine. 

Shane was surprisingly good at acting like his normal, goofy self. Spacing out during the intro and whatnot. Some things never change. 

“...from you guys via our Buzzfeed Unsolved Facebook page, and our Buzzfeed Unsolved Instagram page…” and for a moment, Ryan paused. 

Emphasis on  _ some _ things. 

“Uh- look. There’s an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed.”

“I think ‘elephant’ might be an understatement,” remarked Shane. “We have a whale lying on set.”

“You guys have been tweeting at us nonstop since yesterday- in fact, most of the questions we received had nothing to do with the episode.”

“Yeah, they’re all about the news. It’s crazy. Both the sheer volume of questions and the scope of the news,” Shane clarified. “They’re both crazy in their own ways.”

“Right. So let’s stop beating around this bush.”

“Guess what? Ryan was right.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said, nodding like a madman. “I  _ fucking _ was-”

“Pancakes are good.”

“...”

“Pancakes. Ryan had a point all along. Turns out they’re actually pretty tasty.”

“I- ah-” Ryan began to wheeze so hard that no noises recognizable as human came out.  _ What the fuck, Shane? _ thought everyone in the room, including Shane. 

“Ryan was right just this one time.”

“Fuck you!”

“Doesn’t happen often.”

“We’re- ha- we’re talking about these fucking aliens!”

“Oh right, that too.”

Ryan needed a minute to get all the laughter out of his system. They’d cut it out in post. 

“Okay,” he managed to get out. “So. There isn’t much I can really say. I mean… we found ‘em!”

“We found ‘em!”

“One thing I can say, is that these past twenty-four hours have been the most validating in my entire life.”

“Yeah, before you were going ‘ooh, lights in the sky!’,” Shane mocked. “‘Must be aliens!’”

“HA!” 

“‘Look at these old hieroglyphs, the aliens clearly built the pyramids! They gave ‘em Zunes and skiddadled into the stars!’”

“Okay, you’re just upset that I was right.”

“No, I- give me some credit, Ryan,” said Shane, in a mock offended tone. “I believed in aliens, too.”

“Microbes.”

“I said they could be like people! Animals, at least.”

“Well, to be fair, we don’t know what these aliens actually look like.”

“True,” said Shane, a finger to his lips as if contemplating something. 

“They just sent us fuckin’ math homework. Which is cool - it’s aliens, so it’s the coolest thing maybe, ever - but doesn’t tell us much.”

“They didn’t give us a self-portrait.” Shane almost sounded disappointed. 

“They could look like basically anything, humanoid or not, right?” speculated Ryan. 

“I guess. They could be bipeds, maybe. Or they could have… tentacles for hands.” 

“Or legs. Maybe they’re like octopi?”

“Yeah- wait, isn’t it octopuses?”

“I- I don’t think that’s- who cares about fucking grammar right now? Dude,” he gestured wildly, “ _ aliens. _ ”

“I know, Ryan.”

“Oh, you- you should have seen this guy when the news broke,” Ryan said to the camera. “He was losing his mind.”

Reaching for his drink, Shane quietly muttered, “That’s not  _ in _ accurate.”

“I've never seen him that happy in my life. At one point, he started crying.”

“You can't prove that,” said Shane, now taking a sip of his coffee or tea or whatever was in that cup of his today. 

“You sure? It's been an awfully good week for me being proven right!”

“You say these things like you weren’t  _ also _ losing your mind.”

“Oh, I will  _ proudly _ admit to losing my mind. I was on cloud nine, confetti going off-”

“I know, I was there,” said Shane. He held his fingers a half-inch apart, adding, “Your brain was  _ this _ close to exploding.” 

“Yeah, so… aw, fuck, where was I going with this?”

“To the questions? That's- that's not where you were going, but we should probably-”

“Answer them, yeah.”

“The ‘Q’ part of the ‘Q&A’.” 

“Right. So first up, from Facebook, we have Amy Banks, who asks: ‘Am I the only person who’s concerned about the actual episode…’”

And from there, things were almost normal. While it took some digging (it  _ felt _ like doing a treasure hunt, funnily enough), they found some questions from just before the news broke. More than enough to fill the video. After the eighth, they had an episode’s worth. 

“What’ve we got coming up this week, Ryan?”

“Nothing. The season’s over.”

“Right. But the  _ Supernatural _ season’s coming up.”

“Yeah, we are-” Ryan started laughing, “we are probably gonna need to change a few things, add a little annotation or two.”

“Everything’s already been filmed. And without giving too much away, we did talk about aliens a pretty good amount.”

“Shane made himself look like an idiot.”

“I’ll admit, in hindsight, I do sound kind of silly. But most of the season had nothing to do with aliens. So I’m still in the clear. E.T. aside, it’s going to be a rough season for the Boogaras.”

“I can’t believe you’re actually saying that, after what just fucking happened-”

“I can’t believe you can’t believe something!”

Thus began the wheezing anew. The editors had their work cut out for them this week. Speaking of which...

“Our weekly Q&A concluded, I welcome you to the part of the show we call the Hotdaga, a hot dog saga commissioned by Ryan Bergara, written by me, and adored by every single viewer, and if you don’t like it, you can kiss my apple taters. Previously on the Hotdaga: everything went to shit. Now our heroes...”

_ Some things really never change _ , thought Ryan, already yawning.  _ They really never do.  _

 

* * *

 

_ 10:50 A.M.  _

 

The office was wide awake on a Monday morning, and that alone was a minor miracle. You couldn’t walk to the coffee machine without hearing a different dozen conversations, all about the same thing. 

_ “Do you think they’re altruistic aliens?” _

_ “So there’s this movie with Jodie Foster…” _

_ “We should ask them what they want our cows for.” _

_ “I’m just saying, as of right now, we can’t prove that they  _ don’t _ have tentacle dicks.” _

_ “How much do they know about us?” _

It goes without saying that the ghoul boys were getting attention. You don’t make four videos about possible extraterrestrials only to get ignored once humanity finds the real deal. 

_ “I knew you were right, Ryan!” _

_ “Score one for the Boogaras, bitch!” _

_ “Do you think they’re behind the crash at Roswell?” _

_ “Eat it, Shaniacs!” _

_ “We’re all forgetting the most important thing here. Ryan, do you still think the aliens like butt stuff?” _

They’d been hearing things like that all morning. At the moment, they were at their desks.  Ryan had a blank document open. After a long moment of contemplation, he typed something in. 

_ It has long been theorized that intelligent life may exist outside our solar system.  _

Nah, still not good enough. Better backspace again. 

_ Prior to September of _

That doesn’t work, either. Backspace. 

_ For as long as humans have existed, we’ve been asking  _

Dammit, backspace again. You’d think there’d be plenty to say about the biggest discovery ever made. But Ryan found himself unable to find the right words. Man, writer’s block was a bitch. 

He peeked over at Shane, who wasn’t typing much, either. Maybe he was having trouble, too- oh. Wait. Nope, he was just reading something. 

Ryan leaned closer. It looked like Shane was reading an article, though he couldn’t tell which website it was from. 

“Whatcha reading?”

“Hmm? Oh, just a thing about, y’know. The news.”

“Anything  _ new _ about the  _ news _ ?”

“I think. This article’s all about the planet it’s from. Take- get closer.”

Ryan scooched his chair next to Shane’s. 

“Says here that the planet doesn’t have a moon. At least, we haven’t seen evidence for one yet. And apparently there’s no sign of other planets in the system.”

“Okay,” said Ryan. “That’s cool, I guess.”

“But it says that’s weird.”

“What?”

“Yeah, apparently people thought that if a planet didn’t have a moon, it couldn’t have life-”

“Oh! I remember that,” said Ryan, countless hours of research suddenly hitting him upside the head. “The moon, like, stabilizes its orbit or something.”

“Wow,” Shane sounded impressed. “When did you become an astronomer?”

“I’ve devoted way too much of my life to reading about aliens to not know a thing or two about space.”

“That makes sense.”

“And it’s supposed to have a gas giant, like Jupiter. So the gas giant takes all the hits from asteroids and stuff.”

“But this planet, this Ross 128 b- y’know, they ought to come up with a quicker name for it.”

“Ross?” suggested Ryan. 

“But the star’s called Ross, too.”

“Ah. Damn you, people who name celestial bodies. Uh, maybe we call it Shiny Ross?”

“ _ Shiny Ross?” _

“On second thought, maybe not.”

“Maybe Red Ross? Because it’s a red dwarf?”

“That works, too. Unless: we call the star just plain Ross. And the planet is Ross Jr.”

“Ryan, I like the way you think.”

“Aw. I do, too.”

“So anyway, Ross Jr. here doesn’t have a moon and doesn’t have a gas giant. And people thought that without those things, life wasn’t possible. But  _ clearly _ Lil’ Ross has life on it.”

“Stick it to ‘em, Junior.”

“And if people were wrong about this sort of planet, what else could we be wrong about? I mean, if there’s life on Ross, then think of all the other places-”

“GUYS!” That was Garrett, shouting across the room. “There’s another signal coming in!”

And like ants around a crumb, the office gathered around his desk. Underneath the chatter, there was the voice of a newscaster. 

_ “...reported that this is from the same location…” _ It was hard to make out with all the other voices in the room.  _ “...is not a repeat. Again, the signal is reportedly from the same source, but is not another repeat.” _

“Not a repeat?” asked Shane. “Shit, is it a new message?”

“Maybe they got bored of sending numbers,” offered Ryan. 

“My god. They’ve moved on to ABCs.”

“Hold on a sec.” Ryan pulled out his phone, and started typing. “Alright. Uh, Associated Press says… oh, they don’t say anything new. Maybe somebody else’ll have- uh, Shane?”

Shane was staring off into the middle distance. Like he was doing his weird bit from the beginning of postmortems. Come to think of it, he looked like that during the airport hotdog incident, too. 

“Shane?”

He snapped out of it. 

“Sorry. I think it… it hit me again.”

“Hit you?”

“Uh- I don’t know how to explain it. Y-you know when, like, something big happens, and you don’t realize that it’s real at first, but then, all at once, it hits you that this is actually happening?”

“Shane, no offense - you sound kinda drunk right now.”

“I’m- it’s like an epiphany! You ever had an epiphany before?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“It’s like that. And after a while, the epiphany wears off and things seem normal again. But sometimes the epiphany comes back. It’s- it comes in waves, is how I’d describe it. And periodically, you realize ‘oh shit, the world’s not normal, why did I think it was normal?’, and it keeps coming back.”

Shane took a moment to recollect his breath. 

“So yeah, I just remembered aliens are real again.”

Oh. Well, that’s as valid a reason for spacing out as any. At least it wasn’t bad hotdogs. 

And for a moment their attention turned away from each other. Ryan’s went back to the faint voice from Garrett’s computer. Shane’s, though? Shane’s wandered. His eyes drifted to the ceiling, not entirely consciously. 

None of this was normal, yet all of it was real. This was the sort of world-changing event that only happens in movies, but here they all were. Huddling in front of a computer, intently waiting to know what the aliens had to say. 

It’d be easy to assume that Shane was less of a skeptic now. But that just wasn’t true. He wanted evidence, and science had it. Countless credible sources had come forward, and they all said  _ we aren’t alone _ . It was all too big to be a hoax, far too consistent to be a glitch, too intelligent to be something sent without purpose. 

It was absolutely amazing, and for once, just this once, Shane could believe it. 

 

* * *

 

_ 12:39 P.M.  _

 

_ “Hold on, we’re getting word from Parkes Observatory, they’re saying- they want to stress that they aren’t certain about this, but they may have deciphered a message in the newest signal.” _

Ryan choked on water. 

“Fuck-” he spat out between coughs- “they what!?” 

He caught the attention of people nearby. They crowded around his and Shane’s desks. Shane’s computer was the one playing the news. 

_ “It’s being reported that this new signal is quote, ‘a sort of formal introduction’. They say that the signal contains samples of broadcasts from Earth, and what is speculated to be quote, ‘extraterrestrial vocalizations’. More on this in a moment…” _

Vocalizations? They can fucking talk now?

“Wow,” croaked Ryan as his own ability to speak returned. “Alright. That’s new.” 

He tried to ignore the burning in his nose and refocus on the news. The key word being “tried”. Because 1) water burns last way longer than they should, and 2) hearing is not easy when a decent chunk of the office is having a massive existential realization right next to you. 

_ “What’s ‘formal’ supposed to mean here?” _

_ “How do you even decipher something like that?” _

_ “I think the universe is trying to give me a heart attack.” _

_ “Did they say why they’re here? I mean, there? I mean- fuck.” _

A hand landed on his shoulder. 

“You okay?” asked Shane. 

“Yeah. Just- burns. Jesus Christ.”

Ryan got up, squeezing between the crowd and the desks until he was right next to Shane. 

_ “...just in, SETI has announced that complete recordings of all three known signals will be released later today. This includes today’s signal, as well as the duplicate signals captured over the weekend. Tune in…” _

A handful of “holy shit”s ran through the office. Ryan was very much a part of that cursing chorus. 

“Why haven’t they done that already?” asked Shane.

“Fuck- I dunno, maybe they wanted to analyze it more before they put it out there?”

“Hm. Probably. I’d make a joke about a cover-up, but if they’re all saying ‘aliens’-”

“At this point, what is there to hide?”

“Yeah.”

“God,” muttered Ryan. “Later today. Later today, I gotta set something up-”

“It’s two.”

“Huh?”

“You were talking, but she said it’s at two o’clock.”

“Shane?” 

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m gonna faint.”

“Oh. Drink some water, then.”

 

* * *

 

_ 1:59 P.M. _

 

_ “Watch as they play ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’.” _

_ “Jesus...” _

_ “This is the longest hour in my entire life.” _

_ “I’m counting down the seconds.” _

Just about everyone had found a site to watch the news on. The only thing standing between them and the signals was time. Time that Ryan and Shane had killed by wandering around the office. Best of all was when Ryan crossed passed with Brent. 

_ “Hey, dude. You, uh… did you get my text?” _

_ “...” _

_ “I’ll take that as a yes - I- I felt obligated to, uh… why are you looking-” _

_ “...” _

_ “Oh. Does this- this knowing smile bit, this is about that ‘men in black’ thing, isn’t it?” _

_ “...” _

_ “Dude, it’s been two years!” _

_ “I keep my promises, Brent.” _

_ “Well- no shit, man.” _

God, nothing was more satisfying than giving someone the look of ‘I-told-you-so”. 

Both boys bounced from conversation to conversation, and the minute hand kept crawling. And crawling. And crawling on. 

Until there was one minute left. 

Everyone rushed to the nearest computer. Groups of friends gathered together. Ryan was fairly sure that  _ someone _ had made popcorn, he’d recognize that smell anywhere. Ryan himself was tragically kernelless, as was Shane. They sat together, eyes flitting from the clock to each other to the handful of coworkers huddled around them. 

_ “Ten seconds!” _

“You ready, big guy?”

“I- are you?”

“Yeah- I mean, I think so.”

“Me too.”

They couldn’t quite wipe those stupidly excited smiles off their faces. 

_ “...Four, three, two, one!” _

Everything went quiet. 

Stayed quiet. 

Kept staying quiet. 

“They probably didn’t mean  _ exactly _ two, did they?” asked Ryan. 

“I feel kinda silly now.”

The anchor on the monitor was talking. 

_ “We’re getting ready,” _ she said.  _ “The playback should start in just a minute. Please hang tight for the moment.” _

Okay. A minute. They had an extra minute to wait. A whole minute. Only a minute. Holy crap, they only had a minute. 

_ Oh shit, _ thought Ryan.  _ This is actually happening. Fuck.  _

_ Oh shit, _ thought Shane.  _ I completely forgot about BergaraGuitara. Fuck. _

Their thoughts were cut short when another woman showed up on screen. Ryan and Shane didn’t need to hear her introduction to recognize her. 

_ “...have an expert opinion before the broadcast, we have SETI researcher Dr. Phoebe Branner. Thank you for joining us, Dr. Branner.” _

_ “Thank you for having me.” _

_ “Now, we’re just a few moments away from playing the signals your team recorded for our audiences at home. And as we prepare for that playback, I feel that our audience should have some background on what the signals are.” _

_ “By background, what specifically do you mean by that?” _

_ “Just some information about how you- your team- detected these signals, how you went about interpreting them, things like that.” _

_ “Oh. Alright. Well, we detected them- really, it was a matter of luck. We happened to be observing the sky around Ross 128, and our instruments detected an incoming signal. Its strength caught our attention, and from there, we just never looked away.” _

_ “And as I understand it, the signal’s been altered somewhat from what your team received.” _

_ “Uh- yes. It has been, in a way. We had to convert the data from the signal into audio. We didn’t receive sound waves, but radio waves, which are actually more like light than sound. The human ear can’t hear the signal at the frequency that it was broadcasted. So our computers have to make some adjustments so that it’s audible. It’s convenient for us as we’re studying it, and vital to communicating the discovery to the public. The pattern, the information, it’s all the same...” _

“Shane?” Ryan whispered. 

“Yeah?”

“Are you having, like, flashbacks to high school physics? ‘Cause I am.”

Shane nodded. 

“I’m going to sound like an impatient dick,” muttered Ryan, “but I want them to get to the aliens already.”

_ “...anyway, the message received earlier today. Apparently, and this is what I’ve been told, you- your team- managed to decipher it.” _

_ “Well, I wouldn’t say ‘deciphered’. What we have is an educated guess of what these intelligent beings are trying to say. Confirming any meaning here is more or less impossible. These are aliens talking to us. We have virtually no idea what they’re like. It seems they have a civilization, and technology that’s similar to ours. And that’s about it. Their culture is a complete mystery. So are their forms of communication. We’re not sure if they even have languages in the same way we do.” _

_ “But you think you know what this message is trying to say?” _

_ “Yes. Based mostly on one part of the signal, we think we have an idea of what this is.” _

_ “What is it, then? What are these aliens trying to say?” _

_ “Well- we think that this is an introduction. Part of the signal consisted of things that Earth broadcasted. Old television programs and music. Then, the usual beeps. And there was something else. Not beeps, but different. It was a sound- I don't know how to describe it. My best guess is that it's a sound the creatures sending this message make. If it's vocalizations or not, that I can't say. If I- if I were to attempt some rough translation, it'd go something like ‘you are this, we are this’. Maybe that's how they say hello.” _

_ “That's… thank you, Dr. Branner. Uh- we’ll be playing back the message in a few moments. I'm told that the third signal is the one that will be broadcast live, due to its length and its apparent significance. Stay tuned…” _

The office was in a quiet state of chaos. The whispered hubbub was inescapable. As was the banter - well, Ryan and Shane found it unavoidable, at least. 

“So the aliens sent us, like, old TV shows?” Shane asked. 

“I think so?”

“Do- do you think they sent, like-”

“Fucking, Jeopardy or something-”

“I- yeah! Jeopardy, that's how they learn about Earth.”

“Ha!” Ryan laughed. “They've got little alien notepads, writing with tentacle hands-”

“They don't understand the language, but they write it down anyway.”

“‘What the fuck’s a car?’ Or whatever the alien translation of ‘what the fuck’ is.” 

“They've got some X-Files, of course, some Simpsons-”

“‘These humans are yellow with four digits. Such a fascinating species.’”

“Ha- Friends, maybe.”

“Dude. Star Trek. They totally watched Star Trek.”

“Wait. Better yet. They watch Star Trek, but they think it's all real.”

“Oh my-” And the wheezing was back in full force. “That's- ha! That's perfect!”

“ _ Ooh! _ These humans are more advanced than we thought! They've mastered both the feat of space travel and the fine art of overacting.”

“Oh, you gotta-”

_ “Transmission begins in ten seconds.” _

The speed at which the boys spun their heads to the screen should have given them whiplash. 

_ Ten. Nine. Eight.  _

The waiting was over. 

_ Seven. Six. Five.  _

This was it, this was- oh,  _ god. _

_ Four. Three. Two.  _

Truly being prepared for something like this… they never had any chance of that, did they?

_ One.  _

A moment of silence. 

 

Then, a  _ beep.  _

 

Nobody dared breathe. 

A pause. 

Another beep. 

Another pause. 

A series of beeps and pauses. Ongoing. And ongoing further. A pattern? Perhaps. They couldn't tell. Yet every beep carried a hint of purpose. 

A static. Faint, but  _ there _ . There and growing. From faint electronic mumblings to something else. 

_ A voice. _

It was distorted, to the point where it didn't sound like English. Though something about it seemed- not familiar, but recognizable. It was  _ human _ , they could tell that much. 

And then came something else. 

_ “- at one p.m., central standard time. That's two p.m.- I think we're fighting a losing game- the next thirty minutes, as the world-” _

English voices. Spliced with  _ music _ in between. With every new sample, the voices became clearer. 

_ “-to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope- star, the professor and Mary Ann- effective at noon tomorrow-”  _

Between the English bits, there were words in languages they normally couldn't speak or read or understand. But today, they understood loud and clear. They couldn't get the words, but they got the message _.  _

_ This is humanity.  _ Or as the aliens would put it,  _ this is you. _

It stops. 

There's a pause. 

And the beeps start again. 

There's static again. But it's quiet.  _ Very _ quiet. Had more people in the office been talking, it might have been drowned out. 

Until clearer sounds came in. 

There was- well, there was  _ something _ . Something like- clicking? No, not quite. It reminded them of  _ cooing _ . A  _ cooing _ from the speakers. A cooing with slight changes in tone, in the length of each sound. Like a bird singing to its young, only a little harsher and with shifts in pitch. 

It was inhuman, that they could tell. But the humans in that office had a pretty good idea of what it meant. 

_ Hello. This is us.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AO3's been acting up with the notes. I think it's because I didn't put end notes on this chapter when it was first posted. Just letting you know - if there are three sets of end notes on chapter three, then, well, know that I tried. 
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading! I hope you'll stick around 'till the end!


	3. Light-years

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for the response to the previous chapters!
> 
> Now, I should put a little warning up here: this chapter will allude to some fucked-up historical events. Especially towards the end. I thought I should say it before the chapter began. 
> 
> With that out of the way, here's chapter three!

_ September 11, 5:10 A.M. _

 

Ryan’s alarm went off, as usual. As usual, he pounded the thing into the table. Shit, was today a weekday? Damnit, he didn’t want to get up. What, was it Tuesday? Yeah, it must be Tuesday. Because yesterday they filmed the postmortem, and Sunday was when the alien thing happened, plus Saturday was movie night-

Oh. Shit. The alien thing. Forgot about that for a minute. 

Maybe he could call in sick. Shock or something. Aliens suddenly saying ‘hi’ is pretty shocking. Thanks, aliens. You’ve given Ryan Bergara an excuse to escape to Dreamland for a few hours more. 

 

* * *

 

_ 8:27 A.M.  _

 

He didn’t call in sick. 

“Hey! Ryan!”

Neither did Shane, evidently. 

“Ryan, we need your help.”

“Wait- what? What for?”

“C’mon, I’ll show you!”

Ryan was too tired to react much when Shane wrapped an arm around his shoulders and dragged him to a nearby desk. A small handful of people stood around it. 

“So remember yesterday, when they played all those little clips from old television?”

Ryan stared blankly.

“The clips the aliens sent us?” said Shane. 

“Oh, yeah. Those things. Sorry, man, the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet.”

“Kelsey found a list online. Apparently they’ve already found where all of those clips were from. And Kelsey’s trying to see if we can figure them out, too.”

“Like a trivia game?”

“You could say that,” said Kelsey, who looked like she was enjoying this just a tad bit too much. 

“Look, we can’t figure out any of these. And she's isn’t giving us any hints.”

“It’s not fair if I do that!” Kelsey interjects. 

“You might know a few, right?” asked Shane, eyes becoming more puppy-dog-ish by the second. 

“Okay,” says Ryan. “I’ll help. Try to, at least.”

“Wait, Ryan,” says Sara, “you’re a research guy, right? Have you been researching the aliens?”

“Yeah, but if you’re asking me about the clips, I- I didn’t see anything about those.”

Disappointed sighs came from all around. 

“But I know plenty about the scientif-”

“Okay!” said Kelsey. “Guess this one.”

She clicked something on her laptop, and sound started playing. 

_ “-at one p.m., central standard time. That’s two p.m.- I-” _

“Recognize that?” asked Kelsey. 

“Nope,” said Andrew. 

“Nope,” said Sara. 

“Wait,” said Ryan. “Play that again.”

_ “-at one p.m., central standard time. That’s two p.m.-” _

“That sounds like Walter Cronkite.”

“Hey, wasn’t that guy a famous news anchor?” asked Andrew. 

“Yeah, he was a  _ really _ famous one. I swear, that’s him. When I was doing research for True Crime, he kept popping up. There’s this one clip of him that’s used in a shit-ton of JFK documentaries, and-”

“Kelsey, is it him?” asked Shane. 

“Let me see… it is!”

Cue hooraying from the entire group. 

“Okay. How about this one?” 

One click later, and something new was playing. 

_ “-I think we’re fighting a losing game-” _

“Shit,” said Ryan. 

“Don’t know,” said Sara. 

“Wait,” said Andrew. “... nevermind, don’t know.”

They went through a handful of other ones after that. They actually managed to remember a few of them. Sara and Andrew caught one clip each, and both of them - plus Shane - caught the opening of Gilligan’s Island (and proceeded to sing the final lines). The rest… nope. No luck on any of them. 

“Just be glad I’m not asking you about the ones in other languages.”

“What other ones do they have?” asked Ryan. 

“Well, right here we've got some French - a game show, apparently - um, a bit of Portuguese, Hindi, Hindi- a lot of Hindi. A lot of Mandarin, too. And-” 

The color drained from Kelsey's face. 

“Oh.” She said, with a subtle disgust they'd never seen her show before. “That's… that's disconcerting.”

“What is?” asked Sara. 

“Hold on,” said Andrew. “Did you suddenly realize they’re on their way to invade us and that they hid a secret warning in the message? ...What, it was a joke.”

“No, , it’s… it’s the first clip on the list. It’s, uh, German. Kinda skipped over the details first time reading this…”

“Details?” asked Ryan.

“It’s, uh- the first clip is from a- it’s from the Olympics, an old one… in Berlin, and- and it’s, uh… Hitler’s voice.”

_ Oh. Yikes.  _ An uncomfortable silence fell over the room.  _ Hoo boy, didn’t need to hear that this early in the morning.  _

“Next one,” said Kelsey. “Let’s move on-”

A sigh of relief swept across the area.  _ That _ hot potato was good and dropped. 

“How about… this one!”

A new clip started playing. It wasn’t distorted as much as some of the others were. In fact, it was clear as crystal what language they were speaking. 

That language was French. 

“Kelsey?” asked Shane. 

“Yeah?”

“Are you enjoying making us suffer?”

She didn’t even pause the audio, a bit of music coming in as she smiled. 

“Is this- Ryan, we put her through hell during the Sims videos. I think this is revenge. I- Ryan?”

Ryan wasn’t saying anything back. He was nodding, though he wasn’t agreeing with anything in particular. 

“I know this song,” he said. “I just don’t know what it’s called.”

He tried to focus on the song, his fingers snapping - weird, he didn’t even realize they were doing that - to the beat. And then it hit him like a musical slap to the face. 

_ that german song about the balloon _ , he typed into his phone. A few taps later, and the same music from the message was playing from his speakers. It was on the instrumental bit, and then-

_ “99 Luftballons, auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont…” _

“Yes! I knew it was this one!”

“Isn’t that,” said Andrew, “that German song about how balloons destroy the world?”

“Yeah!” added Sara. “Don’t the balloons, like, set off an early warning system or something?” 

“I think so,” said Ryan, as the music began to sway his hips. Man, this song was somehow… catchier than he remembered. Oh, those memories. Full of flashing lights and dudes in suits- actually, on second thought, maybe he’s better off  _ not _ remembering junior prom. He tapped the pause sign, eased out of the soft swaying motions. It didn’t seem like the earworm had infected anyone else. 

“Uh- I should probably be getting back to work. Things to write, y’know?”

“That’s fair,” said Kelsey. “And Ryan?”

“Yeah?”

“So far, you’re in the lead. You’re at three points.”

“Three? I only got two clips right.”

“One of them was technically foreign language, I’m saying that counts for two.” 

“You  _ what? _ ” said everyone else. 

Ryan slowly walked to his own desk, the coffee beginning to kick in. He looked back at Kelsey, who at the moment was wearing a tiny devil’s-grin.  _ At least she’s having fun _ , he thought, turning back to his corner of the office and snapping his fingers. 

Wait.  _ Aw, shit.  _ That’s  _ never _ getting out of his head. 

 

* * *

 

_ 10:59 A.M. _

 

“Guys, there’s another one!” 

Garrett’s voice filled the room, followed by a series of excited clicks and the clacking of keyboards. Funny; it was almost eleven in the morning. Yesterday’s message came in at eleven in the morning, too. Matter of fact, so did Monday’s. Holy shit, did the aliens have a schedule? 

“Shane?”

“Ryan, I think they have a schedule.”

Oh- okay. Guess they were on the same page. 

“I mean-”

“Yesterday was about eleven, the day before was about eleven-”

“The first one was eleven. Well,  _ about  _ then. Now, my detective brain-”

“Shane, please-”

“-knows a pattern when it sees one.” 

“I think you’re tooting your own horn a bit here.”

“No- well, maybe. What I was going to say was ‘it doesn’t make sense’.”

“What- what doesn’t make sense? Shane,  _ that _ doesn’t make sense!” Ryan laughed. 

“It’s because- ‘cause they’re aliens.”

“Yeah?”

“Ryan, what’s a day?”

“Uh- Tuesday?”

“No, what’s  _ a day? _ What is the definition of ‘day’?”

“Oh. It’s- uh. It’s… twenty-four hours. Oh! It’s the rotation of the Earth! And the aliens’ planet wouldn’t rotate at that same speed!”

“Nailed it. Thing is, I’ve been doing some googling. And it turns out-” Shane turned his monitor towards Ryan- “our good pal Ross doesn’t rotate at all.”

“At all?”

“Yep. Tidal locking, it’s called. Since the planet is so close to its star-”

“The gravity’s strong, and one side always faces the sun. The other side’s always facing away. Kinda like how the moon has a dark side.”

“Yeah, but here it’s  _ literally _ a dark side. It wouldn’t get any light. One side of that planet is always night, and the other side’s always day. So why on Ear- why would they have a schedule?”

“Uh…” Ryan had nothing. This was a mystery. “Maybe… uh.” Then it hit him. “Wait! They’ve been watching our TV-”

“Yeah?”

“What if they’ve noticed a pattern?”

“Huh?”

“Think about it, man! TV has a schedule, it’s got timeslots. If a show came on at the same time every night, maybe they’d notice the intervals.”

“...Ryan, that’s fucking genius.”

“They’re thinking, ‘every twenty-four hours, this particular thing pops up. Maybe the humans have units of time that are that long’.” 

“Yeah- well, they wouldn’t know it’s twenty-four hour- wait, no. Hour-long shows. They could work that out.”

“Exactly!”

“I just-” Shane stuttered. “These aliens. They can’t understand what all these broadcasts they’re seeing  _ mean. _ ” 

“No kidding. I can have trouble understanding my Aunt Teresa, something like this…”

“It’s literally alien to them. We’re the aliens.”

“God, do you think when they first heard stuff from us, they freaked out like we’re doing now?”

“I- probably. I’m picturing- like, they’re in some big grass field full of telescopes. But the field’s not normal grass. It’s, uh- alien grass.”

“Alien grass?” asked Ryan. “Would aliens even have grass?”

“I don’t… think so? Ehhh… maybe their grass is, uh, pink or something.”

“I’m a little surprised you didn’t go for a weed joke there.”

“And if they eat the grass, they get high.”

“ _ There _ it is.” 

“Anyway, I’m picturing a little grey dude, or maybe he’s green- Ryan, you’re the expert on these things; are aliens supposed to be grey or green?” 

“Shane-” Ryan wheezed. 

“C’mon, buddy! You’ve done the research! Grey or green?”

“It depends! It depends on the witness!”

“Great! That solves nothing! Tell you what, I’m picturing him as green, to contrast the pink. And he’s looking out the window of this, this computer room. Staring at the ‘scopes-”

“‘Scopes?”

“Yes, ‘scopes. And he starts hearing… something. Coming from the computer. He calls over to the next guy, like ‘hey, G’Zork, we’ve got something!’”

“G’Zork?” Ryan wheezed. 

“I- I dunno, it popped into my head.” 

“That’s a horrible alien name. I love it.”

“Aw, shucks. One day maybe you can tell him that.”

“You think we could translate that? ‘I like your name’? They fucking  _ coo _ like  _ pigeons _ . How the hell are they supposed to understand us?”

“Uh… math? The first thing they sent us was prime numbers, right?”

“Oh, yeah! Two plus two is always four. If they just… if- fuck. I don’t know how math would help us. Can’t exactly make an equation out of ‘nice name’.”

Ryan sank into his chair, sighing, he let his eyes drift to the ceiling. 

“Still can’t believe it, man,” he said. “Fucking  _ aliens _ are calling us and- and it’s really happening. It’s so  _ big _ and we’re- we’re actually  _ living through it! _ I can’t- this is fucking amazing, dude!”

Shane didn’t say anything back, just smiled. 

“Shane?”

“Yep?”

“Remember yesterday, when you told me about that epiphany thing you’d been having?”

“You, too?”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

 

* * *

 

_ 1:18 P.M.  _

 

“Okay, time to find out what they have to say this time.”

The news was all over the place today. Mostly it was about the aliens, with some other things thrown in regarding smaller events, plus one article about, well, the date. Within a few taps, Ryan had found an article.  _ Today’s Alien Transmission a “Cosmic GPS”, SETI Reports.  _

“Now that’s a weird headline.”

“Is it really a  _ G _ PS if it’s not global?” asked Shane. “Hout ‘bout a… cosmic positioning system. Wait-”

“Don’t think that’d work.”

“SPS?”

“S for space? Yeah, that works.”

“But why the headline, Ryan? What’s underneath?”

“Hold on.” A few more taps. “It says… okay.”

_ According to a representative for SETI, today’s message was in some ways similar to yesterday’s. The new message reportedly contains patterns identical to those received on September fourth, along with new patterns. SETI researchers believe that today’s message describes the distance between Earth and Ross 128 b. One source reports, ‘This intelligent civilization has found a remarkable way to communicate; using patterns of spikes and silence that act as words…  _

_ The presence of eleven spikes between the words for ‘us, the senders’ and ‘you, the earthlings’ appears to reference the roughly eleven light-years that separate our two planets… This would also seem to indicate that this civilization is advanced to the point that they can observe the orbital periods of exoplanets. That’s something we’ve learned how to do only in the past few decades, and we’ve in fact done it with Ross 128 b.’  _

Ryan reads an abridged version out loud.  

“I think,” said Shane, “this kinda ties into the that thing we were talking about before.”

“Yeah?”

“They don’t have days, but their years shouldn’t be the same as ours.”

“How long are their years?”

“Wikipedia said about ten days.”

“Holy shit!” 

“Yeah, it’s a speedster. It’s weird.”

“Oh my god, imagine birthdays!”

“By the time you’re an adult you’re a thousand and one.” 

“‘Happy hundredth birthday, G’Zork!’ they say, and they hand a piece of alien cake to this tiny child, still in like, the larval stage.”

“Oh, so now they have larval stages? You’re really adding to our alien fanfiction here!”

“Oh my-” the wheezing continued. 

“Go ahead, Ryan! Tell me all about the life of G’Zork!”

“That- they  _ coo _ , Shane! They probably can’t even say ‘G’Zork’!” 

“That’s fair. Let’s not project our Earthnormic ideas onto them.”

The wheezing was getting out of hand. 

* * *

 

 

_ 5:38 P.M. _

 

“Ryan?”

Ryan was jolted from his focus on his project. It was Shane who called his name. He seemed sad as he said it, but it wasn't clear why. 

“What is it?”

Shane doesn't look him in the eye.

“Something’s been… bugging me, since this morning.”

“What?”

“It's… I dunno, man. It probably shouldn't be getting to me like it is.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I- it's- they don't understand us.”

“The aliens?”

“Yes,  _ them _ , they don’t get us. Not really. Sure, they worked out how our units worked. They still don't speak our languages. I mean, more importantly, they don't…”

Shane took a deep breath. 

“They don't know anything about our history. About events, countries, people. Ryan, they… remember the clip from the Olympics they sent us?”

“Oh-  _ oh. _ ”

“They have no idea who  _ he _ was. We've got context, we know what he did. But to them, he's just another person. As human as Walter Cronkite. As human as anyone else.”

“I mean, he  _ was _ human. That’s just a fact. No point pretending like he wasn't.” 

“I  _ know, _ it just… it bugs me. I looked it up. That Olympics - that one in Berlin - it was the first one ever broadcasted on TV. And people think that broadcast was the first one strong enough to escape the atmosphere. The first thing of ours to make it to space. Their first impression of us, and it's literally fucking Hitler.” 

Shane buried his face in his hands.  _ Shit, _ thought Ryan.  _ That's not easy to respond to. _

“It’s just-” Shane continued, “it’s been kinda-”

“Gnawing away at you all day?”

Shane nodded. 

“Y’know what I think?” 

Shane looked up. 

“I think it doesn't really matter. I mean, when we've gotten to a point where we can actually talk, and they can understand what he said… by that point, we’ll be able to explain how ‘that guy was a colossal dipshit’.”

Shane nearly wheezed. 

“Yeah, I guess. That'd be an awkward conversation, though. ‘Hey, remember the first human voice you ever heard? Yeah, about him, uh-’.”

“I would  _ not  _ want to be the guy who has to give them the talk.”

“That would  _ suck _ .”

“Yeah.”

A silence came back over them. An awkward one. Someone was gonna have to break it. 

_ Tap, tap. _

“Music?” 

“Jam it up, Ry’.” 

One tap later, the earworm crawled back into their heads. They didn't understand the words, and they didn't really have to. It kept their minds off heavier matters, and right then, that was all they needed. 

_ “Denkst du vielleicht grad an mich,  _

_ Dan singe ich ien Leid für dich _

_ Von 99 Luftballons _

_ und dass so was von sowas kommt.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think AO3 did something weird to the end notes last time. This time, I'm checking the box. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for making it this far! If all goes well, there should be a chapter uploaded per day until the fic's conclusion.


	4. Red Dwarf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So while researching for this fic, I may have inadvertently reawakened my love for the very small subgenre of "psuedo-documentaries about fictional alien planets". And thus, this chapter came to be. 
> 
> Minor warning here: the pseudo-documentary that the boys watch here does contain some animal death. Now, the animals are a work of fiction even within the work of fiction that is this fic, and they're aliens not related to any actual creatures on Earth. Still, I thought I should put up a small warning. 
> 
> With that out of the way, let's press on with the fic!

_September 16, 11:02 A.M._

 

**Shane**

_Hey wanna come over_

**Ryan**

_What for?_

**Shane**

_Movie night_

_Or afternoon_

_Also I found this movie thing you might like and I figured we could watch it together_

**Ryan**

_Sure I guess_

_What time? I'm free all of today_

**Shane**

_Maybe 2? It can be later_

**Ryan**

_Two works for me_

Ryan turned off his phone. His attention turned back to his laptop. In one tab, he had his project. His very difficult project. In another, he had the livestream running. Beeps broke through the air, with a tiny static humming underneath. Listening to alien radio, just another Sunday in the life of Ryan Bergara.

 

* * *

 

_2:03 P.M._

 

“ _Coming!”_

From behind Shane’s door, Ryan heard a faint popping sound. He could almost smell the source.

When the door swung open, his eyes met those of a very excited Shane.

“C’mon, everything’s set up!”

Ryan soon found himself seated on a giant couch, the smell of popcorn wafting through the air. Shane came in, carrying a bowl.

“This looks pretty weird, but I think it’ll be cool.”

Ryan’s attention turned to the television. Netflix was up, and there was a show ready to play. It’s a title he hadn’t heard of before.

“ _Extraterrestrial?”_

“Yeah,” said Shane, sitting down with the bowl on his lap. “Apparently it's kinda like a documentary, but it's kinda fictional too. It's weird. And with everything going on, I wanted both of us to see it.”

He pressed play.

There's a few short seconds of quiet before a narrator comes in. He had an accent that couldn't be placed. The image on screen was of a strange device - a telescope, apparently - floating high above the Earth.

 _“More than forty light-years from Earth,”_ said the narrator, _“it's detected the first habitable planet outside our solar system.”_

“It overestimated a bit,” said Shane.

_“Orbiting close to a red dwarf star is an extraordinary world. One half is in frozen darkness - the other, in perpetual light.”_

Just like Ross.

The camera zoomed in on the planet’s surface. Continents and oceans were replaced with a view of a pink forest. The more it zoomed, the more they saw - and the weirder it got. The pink trees, it seemed, had hearts, and their roots moved in midair. Images of strange creatures flooded the screen, and frankly, it was a lot to take in.

“Red dwarf, Ryan. According to science, the planet Ross might look a little something like this.”

“It might have trees with hearts and freaky-looking fish-things?”

“It’s an artist’s rendition, let’s say that.”

“So you thought this looked relevant to the whole alien situation in the real world?”

“Well- a little? I get that it's a shot in the dark. The- uh- the Rossians probably look nothing like that.”

“Rossians?”

Shane shrugged.

“Rosslings?” he offered.

“No, actually, I think you should stick to Rossians. It doesn't sound as stupid.”

“It's a perfectly good name, Ryan! As lovely as ‘shaniacs’ or ‘Dr. Goondis’.”

“I hope the Rossians come here and murder you.”

 _“Fantasy?”_ asked the narrator. _“Think again. Scientists think we could find a world like this within the next ten years.”_

“When was this made?”

Shane paused it.

“2005.”

“Eh, close enough.”

 

* * *

 

_2:23 P.M._

 

A tall, vaguely ostrich-shaped creature waddled onscreen.

“Oh my god!” Ryan exclaimed. “What is that!”

“It’s a hairy emu!”

“Is it weird that kinda it kinda reminds me of you? _”_

They’d just gotten the giggles out of their system when a tiny creature waddled out of the water, making noises best described as _meep_ s.

“Ryan, that’s you!”

By the time Ryan stopped wheezing, the scene had cut from the alien world to the host, standing in a building and next to one of the ostrich-shaped creatures. The tall alien was easily twice his height.

“Yeah,” said Ryan, poking Shane in the ribs, “that one’s you.”

After a brief detour about science and eyes, they're back to the little meeping creatures. Apparently they were called “mudpods”, and they were having a slight affect on Shane.

“I- I don't know why, but they're tugging at my heartstrings.”

“They are… weirdly cute,” Ryan admits. “Look, they're like little beavers!”

A mudpod ate away at one of the pink trees with hearts (which were technically called stinger fans, despite the fact that they had no stingers that the boys could tell), and across the river, a fan was felled.

_“I bringeth twizzlers!”_

That was Sara, coming in through the door.

“Oh, you're watching that extraterrestrial thing?”

“Yeah,” said Shane, “we're liking it so far.”

“Glad. I watched it when it first came out, can't remember much about it. Just a really freaky death scene - I think one of the big aliens was, like, melted by a bunch of tiny ones?”

“Shit,” said Ryan. “We haven't seen that yet. Just a bunch of weird, kinda cute alien beaver-things.”

“Mudpods,” added Shane, “they're called mudpods.”

“I know that.”

“Then call ‘em that.”

“Okay. Mudpods. They're weirdly cute. I support them in their dam-building endeavors.”

“Let's go, mudpods!”

Shane started chanting, and Ryan got caught up in the moment. Soon, they were both chanting.

“Mudpods!” “Mudpods!”

“I can't believe you two,” said Sara, shaking her head.

 

* * *

 

_2:30 P.M._

 

“Mudpods!” “Mudpods!” “Mudpods!”

 

* * *

 

_2:32 P.M._

 

 _“Red dwarf stars,”_ the narrator explained, _are unstable.”_

 _“Virtually all red dwarf stars are flare stars,”_ one of the scientists added. Well, that didn't sound good.

Suddenly, the star onscreen pulsed, brightened. The planet below glowed as auroras blanketed its day side. The mudpods were out in the open, and the three humans watching suddenly realized that they hadn’t cared this much about cute little aliens since E.T. It was a bit of a problem.

“Come on, mudpods! You can make it!”

Sara had become especially invested in their survival. Thankfully, the little CGI amphibians waddled to their burrow, safe.

Well, except for one. An injured one. It crawled at a slower pace, but it was only inches away from its burrow. Fingers were crossed for it.

Then the sky turned white. The mudpod whimpered, trying desperately to move forward before collapsing onto the ground, irradiated.

And after a moment, the flare subsided. Everything went on as normal. The narrator pressed forward without a memorial, just talking about science again.

“That was… sadder than it should have been,” said Ryan.

Was it weird to get invested in the lives of fictional alien animals? He wasn’t sure. But here he was, feeling somewhat attached to this little six-legged thing on a TV screen.

Next came a part that Sara remembered. Under the surface of the lagoons, a tiny fish-thing swam around. It looked like the result of a cheeto and the chestburster from _Alien_ having a Pacman-mouthed baby. Not a pretty sight. And swimming around it, there were even more non-pretty sights. Dozens, hundreds. Millions, according to the narrator.

“These things freaked me out years ago,” said Sara. “They just… ugh. Don’t like them.”

Shane, meanwhile, was busy humming the _Jaws_ theme.

“Hey,” said Ryan, “why aren’t they going after that mudpod? It’s already in the water, why go after the big alien on land?”

“Shit,” said Sara. “You have a point. These are some dumb horrifying aliens.”

“I don’t think they’re _that_ horrifying.”

“Oh, honey, you’ve got a big storm coming.”

Sara was soon proven right. Over the course of a few minutes, two mudpods were eaten by the tall aliens (a visual that Ryan wished he never saw, _that’ll_ haunt him until his dying breath).

Then the little cheeto-fish made their move. At first, it looked like they’d attack a baby alien, but because the animators had souls, it walked away unscathed. The adult tall alien, the gulphog (“You mean the gulf-og?” “No, Ryan, _gulp-_ hog.”), was less lucky.

There was a visual of the tiny fish-things burrowing into the gulphog’s foot; then, of the alien crying out and collapsing, dead within seconds. Worst were the shots of its body slowly being eaten from the inside out. Ryan’s expression turned into a cringe, and Shane’s was worse - only one of them frequently ran across postmortem photos, after all. Still, images of alien horrors were more frightening than they used to be. It’s easier to not be afraid of aliens when you’re not dead certain they exist.

A growth extended from the corpse, and popped, releasing countless dandelion-looking seed-things into the air. A new generation of killers, floating onwards through the pink forest.

“I warned ya,” said Sara, tossing one of the last popped popcorns in her mouth.

Next thing they knew, the show was ending, orchestral music swelling as the camera zoomed out from the planet.

“Well,” said Ryan, “that was a thing that we watched.”

“It was weird,” added Shane. “I liked it.” He looked down at the popcorn bowl, swirling the unpopped kernels around. “And I'm making more of this.”

As Shane made his way to the microwave, Ryan took out his phone.

“Y’know what I've noticed a lot of lately?” asked Sara.

“What?”

“People have been checking the news like crazy for the past week. Every other second, they've got their phone out.”

“Like you?” said Ryan, smirk on his face.

Sara glanced back at the phone in her own hand.

“Touché.”

“Apparently the real aliens are still at that whole star thing. Like they're making some kind of map. Uh-” he kept scrolling for articles- “ooh, this guy’s talking about the Fermi paradox.”

“It's funny - I've heard that phrase used before, but don't know _what_ exactly it means.”

“Fermi paradox?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Well, basically, it's asking the question of ‘why haven't we heard from aliens?’. Which, it's kind of moot now, but before last week it was this big existential mystery. The universe is so big, but as far as we could tell back then, we were the only people talking. And people had a bunch of explanations. Maybe life was rare, maybe they were communicating with technology we didn't have. Maybe there was a great big filter that kept life from advancing beyond a certain point.”

A beat.

“But. Y’know. It’s not really a paradox anymore.”

“Who wants popcorn?” Shane came in with a fresh new bowl. “Oh, uh- do you guys wanna watch the other episode or switch to something else… it's not about red dwarfs, but-”

“There's another one?” asked Ryan. “I'll watch it.”

“Eh, why not?” Sara shrugged. “I'll take the tour down memory lane.”

“What do you remember about the other one?”

“Flying whales. That's about it.”

“Oh. Well, this should be fun!”

 

* * *

 

_September 17, 12:57 A.M._

 

Ryan bolted upright with an image of that pulsating maw fresh in his mind.

Goddamnit. Why’d they have to watch that second episode? It wasn’t even relevant to Ross, it was about a fucking moon. He’d said ‘I’ll have nightmares tonight’ as a joke as he left, but… fuck, he wasn’t actually expecting them.

He lay back down, hoping for the sweet release of sleep to come as he closed his eyes- _nope,_ just the fucking pulsating maw again.

At this point Ryan gave up on sleep, opting to instead check his phone. Maybe if he read something, he’d find some peace. Maybe some news about the _actual_ aliens. They probably don’t have giant red jaws of death and acid, reading about them might take his mind off that episode. Let’s see, what kind of headlines-

_16 Estimated Dead in Mass Suicide_

_Alien “Star Chart” Still in Progress, Say Astronomers_

_Fresno Man Arrested for Planning Attack on Campus_

_Cult Suicide May Have Been Triggered by Extraterrestrial Messages_

Well. Looks like Ryan wasn’t sleeping anytime soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, the pseudo-documentary the boys and Sara watch? It's real. And it's on Netflix; just look for "Extraterrestrial" and it should pop up. If it doesn't... well, just look for it on youtube. It's cool, and worth a look.


	5. Gone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry for this chapter being a little late. School's started up, and I'll be a bit more busy than usual. Still, I hope to have all the chapters done and posted more or less on schedule. 
> 
> This one's a bit shorter, but I rather like it. I hope you do too.
> 
> With that being said, let's get on with the fic!

_ October 14, 1:45 P.M. _

 

It was time to film True Crime again. For this case, the boys decided to go on location. Fifth Avenue, New York City. Grey towers of concrete and glass stretched above them, ornate monuments to a lavish past. A past that one particular young woman vanished from without a trace. 

It was an old case, one whose mystery was in all likelihood impossible to solve. That wouldn’t stop Ryan and Shane from trying, though. 

“So this,” explained Ryan, “27th Street, this is where Gladys King last saw her, waving goodbye.”

“What was the population back then? ‘Cause now-”

“I dunno.”

“-it’s about eight million, I think.”

“I have to assume it was easier to disappear back in those days. Wasn’t the bustling- wasn’t  _ as _ big a bustling metropolis as it is now.”

“That’s true.”

“Actually, now that I think about it, you could argue that more people can make it easier to disappear. On any given trip outside, you see hundreds, maybe thousands of people. You're not gonna notice if one of them, like, walks into a building and never walks out. Besides, everyone's got their own shit to worry about-”

A very close car honk cut him off. More still sounded off from further away. 

“Yeah,” he finishes. “Like them. I swear, none of the drivers seem happy here.”

“It’s not as bad as this morning. It’s a little less busy now.”

It was nearing two in the afternoon here - eleven in the morning back home - and the crowds were thinning. People were heading inside, finding nearby buildings to stop in. A good number of those still on the streets were putting headphones in, and the radios of passing cars stopped blaring music. All across the city, people were tuning in to today’s big message. 

A few notable exceptions included Ryan, Shane, and the Unsolved crew. It was quieter now, and perhaps their best chance to get good footage in such a busy city. 

They strolled down the street, tracing the steps of the long-lost victim, seeing something similar to what she saw the last time she was seen alive. Well, seen at all. She was a missing persons case; they never found a body. The search might have been doomed from the start, if only because of her family’s poor decision-making. 

(“Wait. Their daughter goes missing, and they don't report it… because of  _ embarrassment?” _ “Pretty much.” “Well, shit,  _ that's _ why it's unsolved!” “Needless to say, I think they could have done… a lot better there.” “Might wanna hold off on that parent of the year award.”)

They travelled throughout Manhattan to get all the shots they needed, even strolling past the reservoir in the middle of Central Park. 

“They trawled this whole lake for her body,” said Ryan, gesturing to the entire reservoir. “Turned up nothing.”

“They didn't use dynamite?”

“No, they- are you still stuck on that?”

“Look, rationally, I understand the logic of it. But it will never not sound weird to me.”

 

* * *

 

_ 3:58 P.M. _

 

The boys wandered around the city, taking in the sights. They’d gotten all the footage they needed during quieter hours, and they were milking this rare trip to the big apple for all its worth. They’d passed more street shops can they could count, each selling innumerable souvenirs. There were the standard “ _ I-heart-NYC _ ” ones, some Statues of Liberty and so on. But there were also a few newer additions. Some UFOs, and drawings of little green men. 

“On one hand,” said Shane, “I find it slightly disheartening that we’ve commercialized the greatest discovery in human history like this. On the other hand-” he carried his t-shirt of Ross from  _ Friends _ with alien antennae out of the store- “we do get some gems out of it.”

After passing by a very large cube of sorts, they’d stumbled upon a restaurant, hidden in the shade under an awning. They found a nice window seat as the crew settled into the next booth over. Food was on its way, but until then, Ryan was keeping himself occupied with his phone. 

“Got it! Here, listen.”

He held up his phone between himself and Shane, so they could both lean into it and hear today's message played back. As usual, it was beeping. 

“C’mon,” said Ryan, “there was supposed to be something interesting in here today.”

He fumbled through tabs, looking for more information. The signal was long today, he couldn't sit through all that beeping for one new thing. 

“Huh. That's neat.”

“What?”

“Says here they've got a new word. Today they pointed at a couple of supernovas, and apparently that helped give us their word for supernova.”

It was far from the first ‘word’ the aliens had taught Earthlings. They'd come up with patterns for ‘red dwarf’, ‘supergiant’, ‘nebula’, plus some extensions of their number system. ‘Supernova’ was just the newest addition. 

“It's funny how we call them ‘words’,” said Shane. “They're just beeps. Kinda like morse code.”

“Yeah, but with the way they're arranged, they've got meaning. Technically, I guess our human words are just a bunch of sounds with meaning once they're arranged.”

“That's fair.”

The waitress came over. A few seconds and two “thank you”s later, and food was right in front of them. Shane, in the middle of cutting his fish open, stopped to ponder something. 

“Hey, do you remember that Carl Sagan quote?”

“Which one?”

“Uh- he said something along the lines of ‘we’re all made of starstuff’.”

“Yeah, I've heard that.”

“And it's because every- almost every element out there was made in the cores of stars. Because that's the only place hot and dense enough for atoms to fuse like that. And when those stars explode, in a huge supernova, all those elements get spread throughout space. Eventually, you get nebulas, and smaller stars in those, and planets around the stars. All of it, made from the one big star that went boom.”

He settled back, sighing. 

“It's kinda beautiful. One thing dies - boom, it’s gone - and another thing is born from its ashes.”

“Like a phoenix?”

“No- well, I guess? It wasn't what I was thinking of. I was thinking- do you think that our star and their star came from the same explosion?”

“Uh… no idea, man. No idea.”

Shane fiddled with his fork, tearing bits of the fish off. 

“Yeah, I just thought, uh- it'd be amazing if two species that came from the same stardust learned to talk to one another. I thought, maybe by making that word for ‘supernova’, they were building up to being able to say ‘we’re made from the same starstuff’. Just- wouldn't that be beautiful? ...And did that make any sense the way I phrased it?”

Ryan paused, his own fork hovering above the plate, to think. 

“I get what you're saying. Very _kumbaya._ Not- that’s not a bad thing-”

“I didn’t think you meant it as a bad thing.”

“I- I think it’s beautiful, too. I just don’t know enough about star formation to say if it’s true.”

“Neither do I, little guy.”

“Did you mean for that to rhyme?”

“...A little.”

“Ha!”

“What can I say, it’s a poetic day!”

“Shut up, Shane.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To end: there is a really good fish n' chips place near the Alamo cube in Manhattan (I just can't remember its name). So this chapter is loosely based on a true experience. Minus the aliens. And the near-future setting. Actually, it's nothing like my true experiences.


	6. Holidays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter, but this one's pretty heartfelt. Hope you guys like it.

_December 21, 10:54 A.M._

 

Ryan and Shane were not faring well.

They weren’t sick, or injured, or otherwise having a terrible day. In fact, today had been rather kind to them. But they certainly were having trouble with the whole breathing thing.

Because playing on Ryan’s computer was audio ripped straight from _A Charlie Brown Christmas_. Audio sent to Earth by intelligent aliens.

This had instantly become the best Friday they’d ever had.

The holiday break was just around the corner. The office was a mess of confusion and gift-giving, and in the middle of it all, Ryan and Shane were wheezing on the floor.

“They fucking-” Shane got out between wheezes- “they do love the classics, don’t they?”

“Hey, good news for you!”

“What?”

“At least they’re not playing _A Christmas Story!”_

“Hey,” said Daysha, walking over to make sure calling 911 wasn’t necessary. “You guys okay? At this rate, you’ll wheeze your lungs out.”

The accidental well-timed reference nearly rendered them unconscious with laughter. 

 

* * *

 

_5:14 P.M._

 

“Hey, Ryan. I’ve been thinking.”

“Really? You have?”

“Shut up,” he said, nudging Ryan in the ribs. “The Rossians, they must know that special plays every year. It’s an annual tradition.”

“And they thought ‘oh, wouldn’t it be nice if we sent the humans a lil’ happy holidays message?’.”

“Yeah. And that got me thinking. They recognize that we have a tradition. And that - to me at least - kind of implies that they have traditions of their own.”

“Oh, shit. What would the alien equivalent of Christmas be like?”

“They don’t have Jesus, man. I don’t know.”

“Maybe- uh, a lot of cultures have seasonal holidays- oh, but they wouldn’t-”

“I don’t think they’d have seasons. The sun never moves.”

“Aren’t seasons caused by the tilt of the Earth’s axis, though?” Ryan leaned back in thought. “They kinda drilled that into us in elementary school.”

“Are they tilted?”

“I don’t- either way, their years are- what, nine days?”

“I can’t imagine they have a big festival on a weekly basis. That’s too much partying.”

“Every two hundred hours, everybody gets presents. Which would be _awesome_ , but also a little bit much.”

“How would they know that time’s passed? They don't have seasons.”

“...I have no idea.”

“Maybe-” Shane started, but finished with “no. Never mind, I got nothing. Holidays are social constructs, man. We have zero idea of how the aliens celebrate them.”

“I do wonder, though. Do you think the aliens have any sort of- a religion, I guess?”

“I dunno. Maybe.”

“Maybe the aliens believe in ghosts.”

“Ryan-”

“HA!”

“Ryan, no. You’re not making them-”

“I’m betting G’Zork believes in ghosts.”

“He does not- you are not forcing bullshit onto G’Zork!”

“Okay. G’Zork’s a skeptic.”

“Thank you.”

“His buddy- uh- _Y’wal,_ though. Y’Wal believes.”

“Fuck you.”

“Aw, thanks!”

It took a small mental tug of restraint to not say something else. _Do you think the aliens have souls?_

Ryan was fairly sure they did. There was something about them that just screamed “souls” to him. They were clearly people, even if they weren't human, so of course they'd have souls. But he knew other people thought differently, and they had different reasons for disagreeing. He had an idea of what Shane would say - _“Souls don't really exist, so the aliens wouldn't have ‘em.”_ Other people… well, other people had different ideas about what constituted personhood.

But talking about it would bring up some very big questions, ones Ryan wasn’t sure he wanted to ask right then. The boys could dance around the question of a higher power until they were as dead as those people in France, but ghosts? Ghosts were fair game.

 

* * *

 

_7:46 P.M._

 

“Hey, you about to leave?”

“Yeah, I was just packing up, but, uh- I wanted to give you something.”

Shane reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a small something wrapped in tissue paper.

“I figured I should give you something before we went on break. So-” he handed it to Ryan- “Merry Christmas.”

“Thanks, man. Wait- can I open it here, or should I hold off until Christmas?”

“Eh. Your choice.”

“You did say that holidays are social constructs, right?”

Shane nodded.

Ryan ripped the paper off, unwrapping the little mystery gift. Inside, he found a little piece of plastic - on one side, a magnet, and on the other, a picture of a planet.

“It's an artist’s rendition of Ross,” Shane explained. “I know it's really small-”

“I love it.” Ryan was beaming.

“Good. ‘Cause I bought about ten.” Shane brought out a gift bag from behind his monitor.

“Ha- Shane!”

“They’re a bunch of different designs. I saw them in New York and thought of you.”

Ryan opened the gift bag, spotting several magnets inside. The one on top had a little flying saucer, hovering among diamond-shaped stars. Underneath, a telescope. Underneath that, a tiny grey alien, waving hello.

“Aw. Thanks, man. And before you go-” he grabbed a tall, wrapped box from the corner of his desk. “This is for you.”

Shane took the box, tearing away at the wrapping until he reached cardboard. The box was for a coffee cup - a cup with spiked patterns on it.

“It's supposed to represent one of their messages. The spikes line up with the beeps in their broadcasts. I thought you might like it…”

Ryan stopped talking when Shane opened his arms. They were hugging before either one of them had a chance to say another word. 

“I love it.”

“Yeah, it’s another thing you can obnoxiously sip tea out of.”

Shane squeezed harder, and it wasn’t clear whether he wanted to crush Ryan or he couldn’t hold back his appreciation.

“Happy holidays, man.”

“You too, big guy.”


	7. Night Sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for this being late. A combination of school, events, and overestimation of my own writing ability slowed it down. 
> 
> Still, I'm somewhat proud of this chapter. The boys are on a trip again, and they've taken a short detour to appreciate the cosmos. 
> 
> Anyway, let's get on with the fic!

_April 7, 11:57 P.M._

 

The crickets sang, shrill chirps piercing the chilly night air. A tiny breeze sent the reeds swaying. The plants quietly danced to the sounds of the field.

Breaking through the music of nature were two sets of footsteps. Ryan and Shane made their way through the field, soon finding a good patch of short grass.

They sat down, settling into their spots for the hour.

“I still can't believe it.”

“What, Ry?”

“I- fucking, look up!”

The boys’ eyes turned skyward. Glittering above were hundreds - no, thousands - no, _millions_ of stars. It was as if an artistic giant had thrown tubes of glitter into the inky sky.

“So many stars…”

“No light pollution out here, baby." Shane stretched backwards, lying on the grass. "Just stars as far as the eye can see.”

“Uh-” Ryan began. “I never told you this, but when I was little - really little, like, four - I remember an earthquake happening really late at night. Well, I guess it was more early in the morning. I remember my mom running in to make sure I was okay, then running out. I think she wanted to see if anything was broken. And I got up, followed her.”

Shane was listening closely.

“And everything was dark. I learned what a blackout was that night. Anyway, I walked outside. I looked up. And my four-year-old mind exploded. Because above me, I saw thousands upon thousands of stars. Now, I- I knew what stars were, but only from books and movies. I can’t remember seeing them for real before that night. And it… it was beautiful. I, uh- I remember my next-door neighbor freaking out. She shouted something about a cloud that looked ‘unnatural’. I think she might have called 911 over it-”

“HA- oh my-” Shane burst out wheezing.

“And it turns out-” Ryan pointed upwards- “we were just seeing the Milky Way for the first time.”

They both looked towards a streak across the sky. A cluster of innumerable stars stretched from one horizon to the other. A river of light, overflowing with untold billions upon billions of little dots high above.

“To think,” said Ryan, “I looked up there and imagined flying saucers-”

“Yep.”

“When there were real, living aliens up there, looking at us.”

“Do you think, if they had a really big telescope, they could see us?”

“See- you mean us as in the two of us, or-”

“The two of us. Just chilling in a field.”

“I don't know if there's a telescope in the universe powerful enough for that.”

“Yeah, I'm just jok- well actually, we've got one that can see their atmosphere now. It's somewhere up there right-”

Shane stopped abruptly.

“What?”

A moment passed.

“Cricket. A cricket just landed on me.”

Ryan glanced over. Shane's eyes were centered on a tiny dark spot on his chest. A spot that chirped, then shifted. After a moment, Shane began to chuckle, and the cricket jumped away into the grass.

“Aw.” There was a air of sadness to his voice. “It was kinda cute.”

“Y’know, I’ve been wondering. We have no idea what the aliens actually look like. For all we know, they could look like- uh- giant bugs. Big crickets, maybe.”

“They don’t have to be _giant_ bugs. Maybe they’re normal-sized bugs. Oh- maybe they aren’t bugs, but they’re still bug-sized. They don’t have to be on the same scale as us.”

“Conversely, what if they’re giants? We don’t know. Maybe they’re your long-lost long-legged brethren.”

That one earned Ryan a nudge to the ribs.

“I’ve been reading stuff with people talking about it, but from a scientific perspective. What they’d look like. Their oxygen levels are a lot like ours, which- first of all, proves there’s something alive there, it’s not just robots or a colony set up by someone from some other…”

Ryan nodded along. He’d read plenty about the ‘might-be’s of these aliens. What if Ross is just a colony, and the Rossians were actually from somewhere else? What if they were using robots to spread throughout the galaxy? Or what if they were just like us - not quite ready to leave their home planet behind?

The last one seemed most likely. Their planet was filled with oxygen and carbon dioxide and several thousand metric fucktons of what scientists called “biomarkers”. Which, they said, indicates that this is the alien’s homeworld. If its atmosphere seemed lifeless, it’d mean that they were from somewhere else, just setting up a colony like we wanted to do with Mars. Instead, all signs pointed to them being a one-planet species. All and all, the Rossians seemed an awful lot like humans.

“...which is why we don't have you-sized scorpions anymore.”

It was then that Ryan realized he'd spaced out for the past thirty seconds. But a few of the millions of stars above align, and Shane doesn't notice, going on another tangent.

“Y’know what’d be real weird? If - by sheer fucking luck - they happened to look exactly like us. Like in all those old movies, where they’re just people in weird suits.”

“Shane. Remember Plan 9?”

“I- HA! Yeah, I remember Plan 9. Are you worried about them invading, Ryan?”

“Oh, if they’re anything like the Plan 9 aliens, we have _nothing_ to fear.”

“That’s- that’s fair. I mean, if they’re like us- not like Plan 9, but like the real us - like, technologically speaking - they haven’t left their home planet yet.”

“It’s not like they’ve _mentioned_ living on other planets. You’d think their star chart might be a map for them-”

“I’ve googled it. Half those stars can’t support life. I think they’re just bragging about being really good at stargazing.”

“It’s not like interstellar travel is easy.”

“Speed of light’s a b.”

“I mean, their messages take years to reach us. 10.89 years at the speed of light. And if there’s one thing I remember from high school physics, it’s that light’s the fastest thing out there.”

“If there’s one thing _I_ remember from _Cosmos_ \- which I've been rewatching ever since Netflix came to their damn senses and _put it back-”_

“Not again…”

“-frankly, that it was ever removed was a _travesty-”_

“I know, Shane. You've used that exact phrasing for months.”

“Anyway, the universe is big. Really fuckin’ big. We're seeing light from millions of years ago. A solid chunk of these stars are dead now. We're looking at their ghosts.”

“Oh?”

“Oh what- oh, _no.”_

“You said it!”

“Ryan, it was a figure of-”

_“You said it!”_

“-figure of _speech!”_

“I'm never forgetting that.”

“Goddamnit…”

“There’s a little storage space in my heart, and I'm keeping that in there forever now.”

“What's that?” Shane took out his phone, miming turning it on. “Hey, the Rossians sent another message! It says ‘Ryan Bergara is an asshole’.”

“Really? ‘Cause I just-” Ryan actually went through his phone, taking a few moments to get to what he wanted- “got a message, too. And it says-”

A tap, and a familiar _cooing_ played through the speakers.

“It roughly translates to ‘ghosts are real’.”

“Do you… have that sound saved to your phone?”

“Yes, actually. I just got a soundboard app. In case the moment calls for a special something.”

“You weirdo.”

_Tap._

_“Shut up, Shane.”_

That got Shane wheezing.

“Anyway. I've been wondering.” Ryan's eyes turned to the screen. “That clip, that bit of them talking. What does it actually mean?”

“Uh… we come in peace? I dunno.”

“That feels too cliché to be real.”

“Maybe they take a really long time to say hello. A lot of words.”

“Nah.”

“I mean, in English we need to say ‘the joy caused by another person's misfortune’, but in German you just say ‘schadenfreude’. We've got ‘hello’, all nice and simple. They might need more words.”

“...Okay, when you put it like that, it seems less dumb.”

“Thanks?”

“God, I wish we could talk to ‘em. I mean, face to face - I know the response got beamed out, but that's gonna take about a decade.”

“Plus, they're a decade behind us. It takes over twenty years to have a conversation.”

“If we could just be closer in space… fuck, that’d be incredible.”

“We could meet G’Zork.”

“Yes, Shane. We could meet your Rossian OC, do not steal.”

“And yours!”

“Of course, Y’Wal. The sensible one.”

“Shut up,” said Shane through a smile.

“I wonder. They’re right about in that direction, right?”

Ryan pointed to the south, at a constellation near the horizon.

“That’s Virgo, I think. They’re around there.”

“But they’re not bright enough to see, right?”

“Not with the naked eye. You brought the telescope, didn’t you?”

“Uh- shit-” Shane fumbled with his jacket. _Gum packet, no. Tickets, awesome but no._ Finally his hands brushed against plastic. _“Aha!”_ He pulled out a small telescope.

“Lemme take a look.”

Ryan looked through the lens, setting his sights on a corner of the constellation.

“Um… uh… fuck. I can't find it.”

“Can I try?”

Shane looked in the same place.

“Hey, did you bring a star map?”

“No, but I did bring my phone.”

After a long and awkward moment of Ryan raising his phone up to the sky (“C’mon, bars!”), he resigned himself to burning his data plan. A handful of taps later, and he had an image up.

“There we go. Right next to the bright star.”

Shane looked to the phone and back again.

“I think I might have it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s tiny! Here, look-”

He handed the telescope to Ryan, who looked for that spot in the sky. Sure enough, next to that bright star in the corner, there was a miniscule dot of light.

“You see it?”

“I do. Shane, it-” Without warning, a wave of emotion crashed over him. It wasn’t unlike the epiphanies he and Shane had just after the first message. “I shouldn’t think it’s as beautiful as I do-”

“No, it’s beautiful. You can say that. It’s a tiny star you can barely make out, sure. But it’s proof we’re not alone. In all of this-” he gestured to the whole of the night sky- “it’s the one neighbor we’ve found.”

Ryan let the telescope fall to his waist. His gaze turned to the galaxy splitting the sky in two.

“I had this thought,” Shane said. “What if, right now, on the surface of Ross, there’s a pair of Rossians looking up into the stars, wondering if there’s two weird little Earthling aliens looking back at them.”

They let those words hang heavy in the air for a moment.

_“Hey, guys!”_

That was Devon calling.

_“It’s time to get back!”_

And there was TJ.

The boys wiped themselves free of grass, and Shane checked to make sure he had everything on him. _Phone, gum, Ryan’s got the telescope, and the tickets - check._

“Hey, about the tickets. Where do you wanna put them for safekeeping?”

Ryan shrugged.

“In the glove compartment?” he offered. “Look, I'll find a good place for them once we get home.”

That was good enough for Shane, who let himself take a peek at the text on the tickets.

_ADMIT ONE_

  1. _PHOEBE BRANNER, “THE NEXT GIANT LEAP”_



Working for Buzzfeed certainly had perks. Sometimes those perks included getting free tickets to see a famous scientist talk about the greatest discovery in human history.

“Shane, c’mon!”

Ryan was already walking back towards the car, and Shane followed suit. Along the way, he looked back towards Virgo. Towards the real-life G’Zork and Y’Wal. Or whatever the actual aliens’ names were. His gaze stayed there for another moment, before falling back to the trail. As he walked, he let the memory of their coos and the nocturnal chorus of the field harmonize in his mind.


	8. Early

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before I say anything else, I have to apologize for how late this is. I should not have promised a frequent upload schedule if I couldn't keep it up. (PSA for other writers: don't make promises about deadlines just as school starts up again.) I am very much removing that end note. 
> 
> Anyway, remember how in the beginning how I said this fic would get a bit heavy at points? Yeah, this is where that heads-up takes effect. I won't say anything else for the sake of spoilers, but just know that things get a bit depressing here. 
> 
> With that out of the way, let's finally get this fic going again!

_April 29, 6:27 A.M._

 

Ryan let his eyes wander as the microwave hummed. To the magnets on the fridge, one of them bearing an alien waving at him with a little grey hand. To dishes that he’d do _eventually, Danny._ To a paper holder and a slip of paper with his name on it, marked with a date of May the sixth.

One week. Just one week!

He allowed excitement to overcome him again. Not quite as much as the first time, a little more than the twelth. Just enough to bring a stupidly huge smile to his face. He’d never been excited about a lecture before, this was a new experience. God, what if he and Shane got to meet her? Would they get that chance? They weren't reporters exactly, they just worked for a company that had some. But still they were being sent to see this, so-

A ding snapped him back to reality.  

 

* * *

 

_6:58 A.M._

 

_“-classic rock and roll-”_

_“-time offer, terms and-”_

_“-breaking in, shaping-”_

_“-was changing the minds of pretenders…”_

Oh, the eternal struggle of finding something good on the radio.

A slowing of traffic alerted Ryan to the “the end is nigh” guy, out on the streets again. At least, he _thought_ it was the same Nigh Guy from yesterday; from this distance, it was hard to tell. He vaguely remembered a time when there weren't as many of them out on the streets. Now they barely phased him.

He also remembered when the hottest conspiracy theories were about how aliens were _real,_ and the government was _hiding_ them. Why some people pulled a complete 180° last year, he didn’t fully understand. One thing he'd never forget was turning on the radio to _“these so-called messages are yet another ploy by the globalist elite to manipulate the population!”_

That was a station he never went back to.

The one playing right now, though? Not bad. Not bad at all.

_“...the stars stole the night away…”_

 

* * *

 

_8:09 A.M._

 

The office was buzzing. Daysha and Sara were walking around, filming a video. Jen was staring intently at photos of cats (whether it was for a project or not was unclear).

Ryan and Shane were at their desks, busy. Shane was clicking through tabs of research, apparently for a Ruining History about “a Russian guy who saved the world this one time”. And Ryan? Ryan was trying to write.

He’d added final touches to an Unsolved script, and was staring at a document he’d grown slightly bitter towards. A passion project, something that he was compelled to write and knew had to be perfect. When he started it, he’d been unable to properly express his ideas; suddenly knowing for certain that aliens exist will do that to a person. Lately, he’d been dealing with a different kind of loss for words. A thousand half-formed ideas swirled in his head, and refused to make their way onto the screen.

What he needed was a transition. One sentence to bridge two ideas. And it was proving more challenging than it should.

And he wasn’t sure if the background noise was helping. The livestream for Rossian messages, like always, was online. For most of the day, only calm static came through. Ryan always kept the tab open. (“Isn’t that wasting bandwidth?” “It helps me focus, Shane.”)

Wait. A sentence. A sentence struck him.

He typed it out. Suddenly, two disparate paragraphs were connected. _Fuck yes._

Finally, he felt like this could be finished. If he just kept at it a little longer… and had more coffee. Coffee always helps. With one hand he reached for the cup, and with-

_BEEP!_

HOLY SH-

_BEEP!_

The fuck?

_BEEP!_

Was that the fire alarm?

_BEEP! BEEP!_

Why was nobody else reacting?

_BEEP! BEEP!_

“You okay?” asked Shane, a hint of amusement in his face.

_BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!_

Wait… the fire alarm didn’t sound like that. The pitch - but not the tempo - sounded familiar.

_BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!_

Hold on- headphones. He still had headphones on. He ripped them off.

No beeping.

“You spooked, Ryan? Don’t tell me you’re going through spirit box s-”

“No!” Lowering his voice, he added, “No, the only thing I had playing was… it’s only eight-something, right?”

“Uh- yeah, it’s almost quarter past.”

“Okay, that's fucking weird.”

“What is-”

Ryan clicked the livestream tab, taking the headphones out of their jack.

_BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!_

“That’s, uh…” Shane's smile was gone. “That's weird.”

“No shit, Shanelock!”

“Shanelock?”

“It’s not normal. It’s way too early, they’re not supposed to play until ten-something. Why would they be so early?”

“Go back to bed, G’Zork.”

“No, really, why would they change things?”

“I dunno.” Shane shrugged. “Uh… could be a computer glitch making it play early. Maybe even aliens get those. They’d have computers, right?”

“I don’t- probably? But why- that doesn’t explain-”

_BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!_

“There’s no pattern, Shane. It’s supposed to sound like code, but now it’s- it’s like an alarm.”

“Hey-” Jen was walking by. “Is that- that’s not the aliens, is it?”

Ryan nodded. Now other people were taking notice.

_“What is that?”_

_“Is that normal?”_

_“Someone else check, maybe Ryan’s computer is funky.”_

“Funky?”

_“But it’s not time yet.”_

_“It’s different.”_

_“Yep, just checked. It’s not just Ryan’s.”_

_“The fuck…”_

_“Okay, twitter’s no help.”_

_“But it’s way too early.”_

_“My mom just texted, she’s weirded out, too.”_

_“So did my boyfriend!”_

_“Can anyone put on the news?”_

The office was now wide awake on a Monday morning. Was it a miracle? Ryan wasn’t sure.

A voice came through someone’s computer.

_“-and that’s really what we’re aiming for with this show, it’s a message about sticking together to get through difficult times.”_

_“I’m sorry, Mr. Davenport, I have to interrupt you. We appreciate you coming on-”_

_“Aw, thanks for having me.”_

_“We’ve just gotten word of something unusual occurring with the broadcasts from Ross. Apparently the schedule’s been broken, and we’re receiving it early. The content is- can we get audio? ...Hold on, we’re getting audio set up right now. Until then…”_

Over it all, the beeping kept going. Every beep was the same length, and so was every pause between them. This wasn’t the careful code they’d sent before. This was more like a smoke detector that wouldn’t turn off.

“Ryan-” started Shane, “you think maybe-”

The beeping stopped.

Apart from the ringing it left in their ears, there was silence. The office didn’t breathe.

Then, another beep. A decent pause this time. Another beep. Just like normal.

It kept going, less alarm and more code, and chatter picked up again.

_“Is it normal now?”_

_“Steven just woke up, he says New York’s losing its mind.”_

_“What was up with the weird shit?”_

_“Hey, maybe they’re explaining things now.”_

The code-like beeps continued. Nobody in the office could discern a meaning. They’d always counted on people to explain it after the fact. Who had the time to memorize every pattern sent, and study alien syntax? Not them.

Just as things felt semi-normal again, the pattern vanished, going back to meaningless beep after beep.

 

* * *

 

_8:38 A.M._

 

Ryan again turned to the anchor on the screen.

_“We’re not sure what this means, but we do have a correspondent at SETI. We’re being told researchers there are looking for answers. We’re going to try and get him through. If you’re just joining us, the transmissions from Ross 128 b have broken routine this morning, and the reason why is currently unknown.”_

“You think this is a prank sort of deal?” asked Andrew.

“It's not funny,” said Ryan. “If there’s a joke, I don’t get it.”

“Well, they are alien,” Shane pointed out. “Maybe our senses of humor are different.”

“Would they even have a sense of humor?”

“I choose to believe that they must.”

_“This just in-”_

Heads turned back to monitors.

_“SETI has reportedly recognized multiple distinct words in the signals received today. The precise meaning in this context, they say, is unclear. More on that in a moment, I’m being told our correspondent at SETI will be on shortly to discuss the issue.”_

 

* * *

 

_8:46 A.M._

 

“Hey, they’ve got a scientist on!”

Sure enough, a computer screen was split between the anchor and an exasperated-looking man in a suit.

_“...for helping us out on a day like this. I’m sure there’s a lot of commotion where you are.”_

_“There is, it’s a mess over here. Something like this, it- it caught us off guard. Still, we’ve managed to figure a few things out.”_

The office went quiet as the man continued talking.

_“In this newest message, we’ve identified the word-pattern for ‘us’, and by that I mean, the word the aliens use for themselves. We’ve also seen the use of a copula, or their equivalent to ‘is’ or ‘are’, as well as the word for ‘supernova’. We’re not sure what exactly they’re trying to convey, but we do have theories. Another matter of note; we’re seeing this broadcasted on multiple frequencies…”_

What kind of message is that? _The aliens are supernova. We are supernova._ What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Ryan began muttering it to himself. _We are supernova, we are supernova._

“I don’t get it,” he said loud enough for the people around to hear.

“Neither do I,” said Shane. “I'm looking for something, but none of my ideas make sense.”

“Same here, man. I mean, what does that mean, we’re an exploding star? Is it, like, a-”

And somewhere in his mind, a few neurons connected.

An idea creeped its way into being. A horrifying idea. A heavy _something_ began to set in. For a moment, Ryan stared ahead, eyes glazed, the face-scrunch of thought fading.

Because it couldn’t be. No fucking way. Not them, not- _that._

“Ryan?”

But it _was_ that, wasn’t it?

“Ryan, you okay?”

“Oh, _god…”_

“What?”

“What if-”

He looked up to face Shane.

“Supernova. An exploding star. _Exploding._ I- what if it’s not literal? Maybe it’s not an actual supernova, not a _star_ dying, it’s just… what if they’re using a metaphor? Shane-”

Shane was shaking his head. The blood drained from his face. That same horrible idea had struck him, too. And yet, Ryan couldn’t help but say it aloud.

“I think they’re in trouble.”

 

* * *

 

_9:04 A.M._

 

“You’re not serious.”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense, Curly! Why would they be sending this if something wasn’t going wrong?”

Rumors had spread. The aliens were in danger, people were saying.

_“This is freaking me out.”_

_“But they're, like, intelligent! What could be a problem for them?”_

_“This isn't like the Jodie Foster movie…”_

The beeps stopped. Another set of codes started playing. Ryan wasn't paying as much attention this time.

After a minute, the incessant alarm came back. It was normal again.

Wait- normal? When'd he start thinking of the patternless beeps as normal? This was abnormal, was wrong. So wrong. God, at least they could hope it was something less grim than they thought.

 

* * *

 

_9:31 A.M._

 

 _“We’ve reached a consensus,”_ said another man on the news. _“Uh- based on a number of factors, we’ve, uh- determined what today’s transmission is supposed to mean. We believe it’s- uh. Excuse me. We believe that it is a form of distress call.”_

Ryan was fairly sure he heard a pencil snap somewhere behind him.

“Why-” words weren’t coming to him as easily as before. “Why send it to us?”

“I guess they…” Shane paused. “They must think we can help them.”

“Yeah, but we… we can’t, can we?”

Every synapse in Ryan’s brain started screaming at him. _Of fucking course we can’t, idiot. They’re fucking light-years away._

An invisible something wrapped around his insides and tugged him down.

_Ross is going to suffer. We don’t know how or why, but it’s going to happen. And there is nothing you can do to stop it. There is nothing we can do. There is nothing any human, or every human, can do. Every living thing on the planet could try to reach out and help, and it would be absolutely worthless._

And upon replaying that thought, he froze on two words. _Going to._ There were 10.89 light-years between Ross and Earth. Nothing travels faster than light.

The message pounding in their ears was 10.89 years old. Whatever they needed help for could easily have happened years ago. Unless someone else got the message- but were there other people out there who could help? Were there other people out there at all? There had to be, right? Right?

“We don't have spaceships,” came Kelsey’s voice. “Why ask for help if we can’t even reach them?”

“Doesn’t make sense,” said Shane.

“We can’t go all Star Trek and… oh, no.”

“What?”

“The game, that- remember the game where we went through the clips they sent us? There was this one clip, and you didn’t guess it back then, I _remember_ you didn’t guess it-”

“Oh, no.”

“It was Star Trek. If they’ve seen it-” Kelsey turned pale. “Oh god, they might not know it’s fictional. They could be thinking William Shatner’s cruising around the Milky Way, and-”

“They don’t have context. News, talk shows, scripted TV - it’s all the same for them.”

“They think we have a chance at saving them.”

Ryan was struck with memory of that exact scenario. It was funny then -  _ha ha, the aliens wouldn't understand Earth culture!_ \- but now it was just another weight pulling his heart down. Along with _what's going to happen if no one shows up_ _?_  and  _do they have 10.89 years to spare?_ and  _oh god, what if everything they've ever sent us was just building up to this call for help?_

“But what do they need saving from?”

“Heck if I know.”

“I- I remember something about red dwarfs flaring up sometimes. Maybe it's a bad flare. Hell, they're talking about exploding stars, it makes sense.”

“But that star was supposed to not have those,” said Ryan. “I did a shit-ton of research, and that always came up. It’s a quiet star. That flare shit shouldn’t be happening.”

“What else could it be?”

“F- I don’t know! A volcano blowing up? A giant asteroid? Fucking nukes going off? It could be anything! It’s not like we’d be able to help with any of those!”

Whispers went through the office.

_“What if another kind of alien is invading them?”_

_“I want to DO something!”_

_“Anyone else need to sit down?”_

It was getting harder to breathe.

 _“We’re seeing this signal being broadcasted on a number of frequencies now,”_ another scientist says. _“Not just the hydrogen line. They’re covering far more of the water hole…”_

Ryan and Shane, still side by side, looked around at the scene. They saw people they didn't think were religious with hands clasped as if in prayer.

Then a new sound burst through the speakers.

This one wasn't a pattern. This was something else. Not dry electronic beeping; this was organic. Like a bird. But not a calm cooing, like they’d heard before. This was louder. Harsher. Frantic. It rang in skulls and echoed in chests, every pitch being hit at once. Some morbid part of Ryan wondered if this was how they screamed.

Over it all, the beeps persisted. Never slowing. Never dampening. Just beeping on, nearly as fast as a heartbeat. A pit in Ryan’s stomach only grew deeper. _Why couldn't this just be okay?_

_C’mon. Go back to normal._

_BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!_

_Please…_

_BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!_

In spite of everything, a single hand began to lift itself up, perhaps wanting to reach for the sky.

_If anyone can do anything, please-_

_BEE-_

 

It rang in their ears for another moment, until all that was left was the static.


	9. Background Noise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that last chapter, huh?
> 
> Yeah, if you thought things were angsty last time... it's only getting more depressing here. Nothing like some good ol' existential dread. 
> 
> But enough of me rambling. There's a chapter waiting to be read.

_September 3, 12:30 P.M._

 

“Y’know, there’s a theory about why we haven’t seen any little green men yet.”

“Really?”

“Yep. They call it the ‘Great Filter’.”

“Sounds... vaguely familiar. Might have heard it during research.”

“Well, your research largely consists of tinfoil hat enthusiasts and flat-earthers, whereas the Filter theory is actually based in science and observation-”

“Okay, first off, I rarely run into flat-earthers-”

“Sure thing, Ry.”

“And secondly, there’s no evidence to support _their_ claims. There’s plenty of evidence that- stop laughing- that aliens exist and have been to Earth.”

“Yes. Old Man Jenkins saw a flying saucer, must be aliens.”

“You’ll never be convinced, will you?”

“I strongly doubt it.”

“Anyway. Your Filter thing, what’s that all about?”

“Well, I’m probably going to botch the summary ‘cause I only heard about it this morning. But basically, there’s a shit-ton of stars and a shit-ton of planets out there. When you do the math, we should be seeing aliens all over the place. Just based on the sheer number of planets alone. But when we look up, we don’t see- putting your UFO stories aside, we don’t see anything. Which begs the question - where are they?”

“Fermi Paradox. That’s the Fermi Paradox, _that_ I remember reading about.”

“Yeah. So some people think that there _are_ plenty of E.T.s out there, they just don’t advance beyond a certain point. Somewhere down the line between bacteria and space captains, there’s _something_ in the way. Something that filters out almost every species that reaches it.”

“So it’s like a mysterious barrier that kills off whoever tries to cross it?”

“Well- I wouldn’t say _kills,_ necessarily- actually, it probably would kill them. If they didn’t die out, they’d just keep trying to leap across until they succeeded. So yeah, it probably does kill them.”

“Do people have a good idea about what the Filter is, or…”

“They’ve got a lot of ideas. Maybe it’s some natural disaster, like an asteroid hitting. Maybe there’s one super-advanced bunch of aliens who destroy anything that looks smart enough to be a threat someday. Maybe once they get big enough weapons, everybody destroys themselves. Y’know. Global warming, nukes, that sort of thing.”

“That’s grim.”

“That’s science, Ryan.”

“Well, I say aliens are real, and in all likelihood, they’ve been here.”

“You’re entitled to that. I mean, I believe in aliens, just-”

“Bacteria.”

“They don’t have to be bacteria! They could be a bit more complex than that.”

“So, what? You believe in alien fish?”

“...I didn’t before you said that. But now I do.”

“You do?”

“I now believe that alien fish could very well exist.”

“That’s all it takes?”

“It’s not that hard to imagine. At least I’m not pointing at shadows saying ‘ooh! I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, must be proof that Casper’s here!’”

“Okay, I have some _shit_ to say about apparitions, sir-”

“HA!”

“Some _shit_ to _say!”_

 

* * *

 

_April 30, 6:39 A.M._

 

The TV was still on.

_“-global panic continues this morning-”_

Ryan closed his eyes again.

_“-confusion and fear: those two words best describe the state of the world today-”_

This was a dream.

_“-flight delays worldwide in response-”_

It had to be a dream.

_“-European Space Agency is looking to confirm-”_

God, why wasn’t he waking up?

_“With me now is Dr. Phoebe Branner of SETI, here to help explain what has just transpired. Phoebe, I’m sorry to have you here on such short notice.”_

_“It’s fine,”_ said Dr. Branner. She wasn’t fine. Her eyes were red, her smile gone. _“Someone needs to be the messenger.”_

Ryan finally put down the remote.

_“Dr. Branner, the radio silence has given way to a number of conflicting reports on what exactly caused it. And the public, in a time like this, needs to know the full truth. At least, our best guess on what the truth is. Your guesses would be the best out of anyone’s.”_

Branner sniffed, forcing the words out.

_“I- I, uh- what we’ve- we’ve been reviewing data from every telescope on the planet - and off the planet - to see-ee what’s happened on Ross. And- uh, we believe, with the telescope meant to monitor the atmosphere, we’ve found o-our answer.”_

She pulled a tissue from her pocket.

 _“When we looked at the planet earlier this morning, we saw-”_ The words caught in her throat. _“We saw e-evidence of radioactive particles in the atmosphere.”_

Ryan’s heart forgot to beat, and the floor fell out from under him.

 _“These particles,”_ said the anchor, _“as I understand it, the star that Ross 128 b orbits is a red dwarf, and while this particular star is usually quiet, those are prone to flares.”_

_“It wasn’t a flare. We would’ve seen activity on the star, and we- we didn’t. Then there’s the evidence of dust we’ve seen, and that, we- it wouldn’t be a flare.”_

_“Dr. Branner, if it’s not a flare, what could have-”_

She stopped.

_“There's no natural phenomenon that could have caused it. I- o-our best guess, the only thing we think it could be is… nuclear detonations.”_

She was nearly crying.

_“A-and given the scale, it- it seems probable that- it was an intentional act of destruction.”_

_“Doctor. I- I…”_

The anchor was looking for words. There weren’t any.

Ryan was finding it harder to watch. He didn't want to break down. Not again.

For a moment, the women comforted each other. Then the camera cut away. A new face, a new anchor. This one was doing a better job of keeping it together.

Now, Ryan figured, was as good a time as any to get up.

He was hungry - when was the last time he ate, yesterday morning? Yeah, he needed something for breakfast.

The first thing he saw in the freezer was a burrito. Fuck it, he could heat that up.

The microwave hummed along, ticking down. Slowly.

Ryan’s eyes wandered. To the dishes, waiting to be cleaned. To the fridge, and a piece of plastic that looked like an alien waving at him. To the paper holder, and a ticket with his name on it. With a scientist’s name on it, too. With a date of May the sixth.

Ryan looked away before the timer went off.

 

* * *

 

_7:27 A.M._

 

In spite of everything, today was still technically a work day.

The drive was different. The L.A. traffic was lighter than usual, and there weren’t quite as many pedestrians. Among them, not one smile. A new Nigh Guy was out today. No better time to spread doom, apparently. At first his sign was turned to the sidewalk. A pedestrian looked at it, and began to speed-walk. Then he turned to the road.

 _“WE’RE NEXT”,_ it read.

Ryan took his eyes off it. _Focus on the road, damnit._ Maybe putting something on would help.

_“-apparent nuclear war on the surface of Ross-”_

_“-NASA reporting thousands of distressed callers-”_

_“-the President is expected to speak-”_

_“-hielt man für Ufos aus dem All-”_

He jumped, turned it off. Oh, god. Who the _fuck_ decided to put that song on the air? Of all the songs, why _their_ song? Who fucking thought, at a time like this… he flipped it back on to see just who’d done it.

_“-have been analyzing the message in its entirety-”_

What? Ryan ran through the stations again.

_“-accord-”_

_“-claim-”_

_“-alie-”_

The song was nowhere.

The drive was over quickly. Ryan found a parking spot with ease. There were too many of them open today.

_“With the statements from SETI this morning, it's become clear that the scale of the destruction on Ross is incalculable. The only words we have are that this is beyond words.”_

Ryan turned it off. He ran his fingers through his hair, shuffled in his seat. Today was gonna be one hell of a day. He reached for his coffee.

It was then that it struck him all at once.

A horrible, horrible wave crashed over him. More than ever before he felt gravity pulling him down. The weight of the Earth was suffocating, crushing the air from his lungs as if all the world’s oceans had fallen on him.

They really were gone, weren’t they? No more rumors, no more hope. They were dead and no one could help them. The pit in his stomach deepened, dragging him down into a unique kind of despair.

It was a new feeling, yet somehow it felt familiar. Like something great and invisible had returned to the world. That intangible feeling that shattered last September had pieced itself back together all around him, but this time leaving cracks, sharp edges that burrowed into insides and scraped against thoughts.

Ryan was crying. Sobbing. Whatever walls he’d created to numb himself fell apart again, as hot tears ran down his cheeks. He didn’t care. Why care? He’s just one man. One human being in one car on one lost little planet.

He was small. He knew that now. Smaller than when he stood next to Shane. Smaller than when he looked into the stars. Smaller than that four-year old seeing the Milky Way for the first time. For the first time, he was acutely aware of just how tiny everyone was.

 

* * *

 

_10:51 A.M._

 

The office felt empty.

It wasn’t really. A good number of people came in. And still, it felt very much empty. Like something had been drained from it. Everyone seemed to be in shock. Andrew was pacing. Jen was crying. Garrett stared at a blank computer screen.

Ryan sat at his desk. The news was playing in one tab. In another, a document he’d been working on for months. _A Close Look at the Rossian Messages,_ it was titled. He remembered typing that out, Shane egging him on. He remembered looking for something to replace the working title, but always finding that the one he already had worked just fine. _“I’ll finish it,”_ he used to insist. _“It’s different from most of the things I write, but it’ll be good.”_

There was a lonely word at the end of a paragraph. ‘ _Another’._ Ryan remembered the sentence it was supposed to be the start of, could almost see the hyphen where it was interrupted. He had no desire to finish it.

In one more tab, he had the livestream. The website was playing static, and the clock was almost at eleven. _Any second now,_ he told himself, _they’ll be on again._ He waited. Every tick tugged at his insides.

Static.

The hour hand reached eleven, and slowly ticked up.

Static.

This time in the morning, there should have been beeps ringing through the office. That was normal. This wasn’t normal.

Ryan closed out of the news. He needed to cheer himself up. Get his mind off everything. Find something distracting, maybe something funny, or something dumb…

An idea struck.

 _hotdaga compilation_ , he typed. The first result was season one.

_“This episode was very sad, we’re just gonna have a hot dog on a skateboard! Going by. Woah.”_

That fucking hotdog, Dan or whatever his name was, skated across the screen. God, it was so stupid. But- well, damnit, Ryan couldn’t help but love it now. To think, back then, he had no idea how big it’d get…

Back then.

The Ryan and Shane in the video… today would have been normal to them. They didn’t know anything about aliens or messages or distant war or cosmic helplessness. They just knew Earth and lifeless stars. And right now, all Ryan had to listen to was Earth in a state of panic and the background noise of the universe.

Ryan. Alone. Next to him was a black monitor and an empty chair.

Shane was among those who stayed home.

“He said he’d rather stay home,” said Sara. “It’s been rough for him.”

“Yeah, I get it,” said Ryan. “You holding up okay?”

“I’m working. I… it’s not like I can fix it. Nobody can fix it. I need to get my mind off it, for today at least. If I can get a project done while I’m at it…”

Everyone had a different coping mechanism. Some people isolated themselves, others talked to friends. Sara worked. Shane stayed home. Ryan tried and failed to distract himself.

 

* * *

 

_12:38 P.M._

 

Ryan was on the road again. He wasn’t sure if he’d go back to work today, and he was just about certain to overstay his lunch break. But it didn’t matter. He had to see Shane.

Parking near his apartment was difficult. Too many people were holed up in their homes, probably watching TV or furiously refreshing news websites. And Ryan couldn’t blame any of them. Settling for a spot a block away, he got out and walked for Shane’s apartment.

Though it was faint, he thought he could hear the muffled sound of someone sobbing as he passed by a building. He walked faster.

A few minutes and a handful of flights of stairs later, he was at Shane’s door. He knocked.

No answer.

He waited a moment, and knocked again.

Still, nothing.

Fuck, he didn’t want to do this. He fumbled for a key. He took it out - shiny, months old but good as new - and opened the door.

It was quiet inside the apartment. The TV was on, and playing the news, because of course it was. But otherwise, nothing.

“Shane?”

A muffled shuffling, and the opening of a door.

“Ryan?”

Shane, to put it bluntly, looked terrible. He stared at Ryan with red eyes, his hair an uncombed bird’s nest.

“You didn’t come to work today.”

“I didn’t.” Shane said it weakly.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Oh.” His eyes drifted to the floor and back. “Well, I’m fine.”

“You sure? You don’t… look fine.”

“No, I am. You don’t have to worry about me.”

There was a long, terrible pause.

“Uh- if you want to stay a while,” offered Shane, “I don’t mind.”

Ryan went over to the couch, silently accepting the offer, as Shane followed.

“Did you have lunch?” asked Shane.

“Uh- no.”

“I can make-”

“Shane. I don’t need lunch. I’m fine.”

Another pause. Neither one of them had words. Nothing adequate. Nobody had adequate words today. The people on the news tried - oh, did they ever try - but they couldn’t really wrap simple words around _this._

“You wanna sit?” asked Ryan.

Shane sat next to him without a word.

_“Chaos is erupting near several large telescopes across the world. There are crowds demanding to know what’s happened to the extraterrestrial broadcast.”_

Ryan grabs the remote, hand shaking as he changes the channel.

_“-esident Santiago is expected to give another-”_

_“-that suicide hotlines have been overloaded-”_

_“-who call the event ‘beyond apocalyptic’, more-”_

He turned it off.

Shane stared at the floor. Expression blank. Eyes still red. And Ryan’s heart was breaking again.

“You’re not okay.”

“Yeah. And they’re all dead.”

“Shane…” Fuck it, he could be optimistic for Shane’s sake at least. “I- look, it’s a stretch, but if they're an advanced species, maybe they've planned for this, maybe there’s still a chance-”

“YOU DON’T KNOW THAT!”

The world didn’t go quiet after that. But for Ryan, the next few seconds were filled with a deafening silence. Nothing but a faint ringing, until Shane gathered his breath and kept going.

“It’s not like- they don’t have ghosts, Ryan! We joked, it’s not- they’re _gone!_ They’re gone and dead and there’s no getting them back! Even if some of them survived - and you know, you _know_ they didn’t - how the fuck are they supposed to _keep_ surviving? They’ve never known a world without the sun, and now- now it’s all fucking dust. They can’t see the sun anymore, Ryan. And we can’t even say we’re sorry.”

Shane slumped back. Defeated. Crying.

“We don’t know what happened to them. We don’t have context. Maybe they had a war. We never thought about them having countries, did we? All our hypothetical little _what ifs,_ and we never stopped to ponder that. We just assumed they were one big happy family, that they wouldn’t divide themselves up and fight each other. Maybe they were more like us than we thought.”

“Shane-”

“Y’know what the worst part is? We’ve come _so close_ to blowing _ourselves_ up. _So many_ times. We only exist because _one_ guy didn’t give _one_ order on _one_ day back in the fucking eighties. All it takes is one colossal dipshit getting his hands on the button, and... I- I’m _scared,_ Ryan.”

He held his face in his hands. Wiped away tears.

“I thought-” he choked on a sob- “I _felt_ so happy when we first heard them. You were there - we were _here,_ right here, on this couch. I was crying then. Do you remember that? I- I finally had something to believe in. Something bigger than us, bigger than this lonely blue rock. Something _real,_ and out there, and-” A hand stretched up, reaching for the sky. Only able to grasp at air. “They’re gone now.”

It fell back down.

“We’re alone, Ryan. We’ve been alone for ten-point-eighty-nine years.”

Tears still fell down his face, and he'd gone quiet. Ryan sat there, speechless, and desperately wanting to reach out. Wanting to say something. But there was nothing to say.

He thought back to the field just a few short weeks ago. Shane’s words from then rang all too true now. All that time, they were listening to ghosts.

 

Wait.

Ryan got up. Before Shane could get out a word, he was scouring the kitchen. Looking through cabinet after cabinet. Until he found a specific something. He came back with a metal cup. A coffee cup, adorned with a pattern.

“What-”

“We can _remember_ them. Even if there's nothing left of them on Ross, they gave us bits of them.”

He held the cup up to Shane. Spun it slightly, showing the spiky and deliberate pattern painted along its side.

“We’ll never know everything about them, but we can hold on to what we do know and say ‘that's _them’._ We can’t save them, we’re never going to be able to save them, all-” now Ryan was tearing up- “all we can do is save their memories. At least we can keep those alive, right? Shane, there's so much we can't do, and I- I don't have good answers. I can't help them, I can't promise we're not gonna blow ourselves up. Remembering them's something we _can_ do. E-even- oh god, even if they don’t have ghosts, if they can still exist in our minds. Ca- can’t we do that, at least-”

His sobs were making talking nearly impossible, and now he actually cared. He had to stay strong for Shane. Shane needed him now, needed someone who-

A pair of arms wrapped around Ryan, and all trains of thought stopped. A pair of arms wrapped around Shane. Ryan was crying into Shane’s shoulder, Shane into Ryan’s. They held each other for dear life, as if they were the only two beings in the universe. Alone and together. Just two small humans on one little planet.


	10. Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And at long last, it's coming to a close.
> 
> Thank you so much for sticking around until the end. Your feedback kept me going when I thought about giving up on this fic. I can only hope it was worth it for you guys. 
> 
> With that being said, that's wrap this story up.

_ May 6, 10:53 P.M. _

 

That night, the buildings were shadows. 

The city had gone dark. The darkest it had been in over twenty years. Barring headlights, every electric light in Los Angeles had been put out. And not many people were driving. Tonight, they were out and walking. 

In every direction, there were people. A sea of humanity that stretched across each inch of ground, as far as the black towers let eyes wander. 

The vigil had brought out a peaceful army. Every person carried a different mix of emotions. Sorrow. Confusion. Fear. And above all, a need to do something about those feelings. 

In the middle of it all, Ryan and Shane. Wandering across the grass, looking for a good number of things. They passed by people who were crying, or standing stoically, or finding a way to smile through it all. Arms clutching bodies. Hands clutching each other. They spoke languages the boys understood and ones they didn't. 

They soon found a table, covered in dozens of unlit candles. A man on the other side of it replenished them as more passers-by took them away. 

Ryan reached out for one - and brushed against a hand. His eyes followed to an arm, a grey scarf, a pair of eyes, and a familiar bun of red hair he’d only before seen through a screen. 

“Uh-”

“Sorry-”

“No, it’s-”

Both of them stammered through attempts at words. 

“Are you- have I seen you on TV?”

“Uh- probably. I, uh. I wanted to be in the crowd tonight.”

“Doctor?”

They both turned to Shane’s voice. For a moment, he didn’t say anything. Until he found something: 

“I’m sorry.”

Branner searched for something to reply with. It was clear she was playing through a handful of responses.  _ I’m fine, _ which would be a lie.  _ It’s okay, _ which was only a hope.  _ Don’t be, _ which didn’t need to be said aloud. All before settling on one. 

“Thank you.”

There was nothing more to add.

Branner reached into her pocket, pulling out a small lighter. After a few attempts, she got it working, lighting up her candle. 

Ryan grabbed one for himself, and fumbled through his pockets for a lighter - he remembered to bring it, right?

His search was cut short by Branner holding out her lighter. She didn’t need to say anything for Ryan to understand the offer. A few flicks later, and he and Shane both had lit candles. 

As Branner turned away, both boys took a moment to look at their lights. Tiny little things, they were. Gentle flames danced around their wicks. They took another, longer moment to look at the lights around them. 

Thousands upon thousands of candles, as far as the eye could see. They weren’t quite sure how something of this scale was put together. It seemed like the tragedy had brought out the best in people. They couldn’t donate blood. They couldn’t send money to a charity that could help. What they could do was mourn. Remember. And try to be better. 

The whole ordeal had brought a sense of unity to the city - really, the whole world. For hours, vigils had been sweeping their way across the planet, lighting up after the sun went down. 

Ryan and Shane held up their candles. Just two little lights in the middle of something bigger. They’d been worried about… well, everything lately. But as they looked around, fully taking in the sight of the vigil, they had a feeling everything was going to be okay. 

The countless tiny lights held up by the crowd mirrored the vast dotted sky above. A sky filled with red dwarfs and suns and everything in between, and surely some things not yet discovered. With every light in the city off, people could see more stars than ever before. Even the streak of the Milky Way was visible. Clear as crystal, for everyone to see. 

Amidst it all, Ryan and Shane looked into the sea of stars. 

And for a moment, they let themselves wonder if maybe, just maybe, there was someone out there looking back. 


End file.
